Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three
impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was
gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
-- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three
impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was
gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
-- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
In all, I've had seventeen demands for your badge. Some want parts of your
body attached. Why did you have to upset everybody?
-- Lord Vetinari reproves Vimes.
(Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)
I save about twenty drafts -- that's ten meg of disc space -- and the last
one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and
received by the publishers, there's a cry here of 'Tough shit, literary
researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the rest are
wiped.
(alt.fan.pratchett)
HOTELS: A place where TRAVELLING HUMANS are parked at night. Other humans
bring them food, including the famous BACON, LETTUCE AND TOMATO SANDWICH.
There are beds and towels and special things that rain on people to get
them clean.
-- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
by Angalo de Haberdasheri
(Terry Pratchett, Wings)
I reckon that Stonehege was build by the contemporary equivalent of
Microsoft, whereas Avebury was definitely an Apple circle.
(alt.fan.pratchett)
'You must know that I am not without artifice where magic is concerned,'
said Weasel. 'Only last year did I - assisted by my friend there - part
the notoriously powerful Archmage of Ymitury from his staff, his belt of
moon jewels, and his life, in that approximate order.'
Excerpt from "The Colour of Magic" / Terry Pratchett
“Did I hear things, or can that little dog speak?” said Dibbler.
"He says he can't," said Victor. Dibbler hesitated.
"Well," he said, "I suppose he should know."
-- Dibbler meets Gaspode the Wonder Dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
“If gharstely creatures from before the Dawna Time starts wavin' at you
from under your bed, jus' you don't come complainin' to me,”
-- Gaspode the wonder dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
“Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the
name of shaman,” he said. Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and
they are called sorcerers. A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the
soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters. But none have
seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they
are known as idio--"
The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry
of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief
blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the
apparition vanished.
There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter silence. Then
the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through
upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?"
The boy looked at him levelly. "Certainly not," he said.
The old man heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he
said. "Neither did I."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
- "Very clever idea, though."
- "What is?"
- "Asking the questions when people arrive. If anyone was coming here to
do some subversive overthrowing, everyone'd be down on him like a pound of
bricks as soon as he answered 'Yes'."
- "It's a sneaky trick, isn't it," said Angalo, in an admiring tone of
voice.
-- The nomes encounter American customs regulations
(Terry Pratchett, Wings)
Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic, and
utterly humourless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally
accompanied by small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps
out of the teeth.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Lure of the Wyrm"
The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four
forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and
bloody-mindedness.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
“Go on, do Deformed Rabbit... it's my favourite.”
-- Shadow puppets are so cute
(Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Death didn't answer. He was looking at Spold in the same way as a dog looks
at a bone, only in this case things were more or less the other way around.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"
“I said I hope it is a good party,” said Galder, loudly.
"AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO
DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT."
"Why?"
"THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle
made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget.
Unsuccessfully.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
“Woof. In tones of low menace.”
-- Gaspode the wonder dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
“Oh, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is
that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you
see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got
back home. I think that's what I mean.”
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
AFPer: Can anyone PLEASE tell me the "rules" and "regulations" of
headology?? It just seems to me that it's an area which is not properly
defined, that's all.
TP: Ah. It appears you have discovered Rule 1.
-- (Terry Pratchett and an AFPer, alt.fan.pratchett)
“Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last week,” said
the low priest.
-- Life in the Temple of Offler
(Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)
His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the
Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous
phrase, "You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and
there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink."
-- We meet Dydactylos the philosopher
(Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Being Ymor's right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with
scented bootlaces.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"
Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that
it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without
inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.
(alt.fan.pratchett)
WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
-- Death appeals to Azrael
(Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)
CONCORDE: It goes twice as fast as a bullet and you get smoked salmon.
-- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
by Angalo de Haberdasheri
(Terry Pratchett, Wings)
If you take the small view, the universe is just something small and round,
like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you
shake them. Although, unless the ineffable plan is a lot more ineffable
than it's given credit for, it does not have a large plastic snowman at the
bottom.
-- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of
evil...prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed
to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...
(alt.fan.pratchett)
Rincewind is one of those people who gets in the way of his own happiness.
If it was raining kisses he'd be the only person with an umbrella.
(CIX Pratchett Conference)
It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as
“slightly foxed”, although it would be more honest to admit that it looked
as though it had beed badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.
-- Ah, but has it been hedgehogged?
(Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)
SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science
explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but
science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when
it is wrong. There is a lot more Science than you think.
-- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
by Angalo de Haberdasheri
(Terry Pratchett, Wings)