He felt that the darkness was full of unimaginable horrors - and the trouble with unimaginable horrors was that they were only too easy to imagine...
(The Light Fantastic)
He felt that the darkness was full of unimaginable horrors - and the trouble with unimaginable horrors was that they were only too easy to imagine...
(The Light Fantastic)
- "Pull me up, then," he hinted.
- "I think that might be sort of difficult," grunted Twoflower. "I don't
actually think I can do it, in fact."
- "What are you holding on to, then?"
- "You."
- "I mean besides me."
- "What do you mean, besides you?" said Twoflower.
(The Light Fantastic)
“Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead.”
-- Apparently Terry nicked this from James Thurber. Still a good
quote, though.
(Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)
The druid stiffened. "*Nice?*" he said. "A triumph of the silicon chunk, a
miracle of modern masonic technology -- *nice*?" "Oh, yes," said Twoflower,
to whom sarcasm was merely a seven letter word beginning with S.
(The Light Fantastic)
'Listen,' said Rincewind. 'It's all over, do you see? You can't put the spells back in the book, you can't unsay what's been said, you can't-'
'You can try!'
(The Light Fantastic)
'What shall we do?' said Twoflower.
'Panic?' said Rincewind hopefully.
(The Light Fantastic)
The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired
Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty
manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hung Ling's Oriental
Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly
dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword. All right,
maybe the boots were leather. But not black.
(The Light Fantastic)
'On whose authority?' demanded Wert. Trymon turned his grey eyes on him.
'Mine. I need no other.'
(The Light Fantastic)
He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record
for the nonchalant walk.
(The Light Fantastic)
He wasn't good or evil or cruel or extreme in any way but one, which was that he had elevated greyness to the status of a fine art and cultivated a mind that was as bleak and pitiless and logical as the slopes of Hell.
(The Light Fantastic)
If the laws of action and reaction had anything to do with it, it should have flopped to the ground a few feet away. But no-one was listening to them.
(The Light Fantastic)
“Students made it long ago," said Rincewind. ”Handy way in and out after
lights out."
"Ah," said Twoflower, "I *understand*. Over the wall and out to
brightly-lit tavernas to drink and sing and recite poetry, yes?"
"Nearly right except for the singings and the poetry, yes," said Rincewind.
(The Light Fantastic)
The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and
during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation
was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and
introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable
here that "all men spoke of his prowess" any bard who valued his life would
add hastily "except for a couple of people in his home village who thought
he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard
of him."
(The Light Fantastic)
THE DEATH OF A WARRIOR OR THE OLD MAN OR THE LITTLE CHILD, THIS I UNDERSTAND, AND I TAKE AWAY THE PAIN AND END THE SUFFERING. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS DEATH-OF-THE-MIND.
(The Light Fantastic)
(...) there were far worse things than Evil. All the demons in Hell would torture your very soul, but that was precisely because they valued souls very highly; Evil would always try to steal the universe, but at least it considered the universe worth stealing. But the grey world behind those empty eyes would trample and destroy without even according its victims the dignity of hatred. It wouldn't even notice them.
(The Light Fantastic)
The Disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailors who get funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for the antipodes soon learned that the reason why distant ships sometimes looked as though they were disappearing over the edge of the world was that they were disappearing over the edge of the world.
(The Light Fantastic)
“The knuckles! The horrible knuckles!”
(The Light Fantastic)
It was the sort of grin people use when they stare at your left ear and tell you in an urgent tone of voice that they are being spied on by secret agents from the next galaxy. It was not a grin to inspire confidence. More horrible grins had probably been seen, but only on the sort of grinner that is orange with black stripes, has a long tail and hangs around in jungles looking for victims to grin at.
(The Light Fantastic)
- "If you're going to suggest I try dropping twenty feet down a pitch dark
tower in the hope of hitting a couple of greasy little steps which might
not even still be there, you can forget it," said Rincewind sharply.
- "There is an alternative, then."
- "Out with it, man."
- "You could drop five hundred feet down a pitch black tower and hit stones
which certainly are there," said Twoflower.
Dead silence from below him. Then Rincewind said, accusingly, "That
was sarcasm."
(The Light Fantastic)
A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally
established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon
or three normal sized billiard balls.
(The Light Fantastic)