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The thing with crowns is, it isn't the putting them on that's the problem, it's the taking them off.
Terry Pratchett
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The singers all loathe the sight of one another, the chorus despises the singers, they both hate the orchestra, and everyone fears the conductor; the staff on one prompt side won't talk to the staff on the opposite prompt side, the dancers are all crazed from hunger in any case...
Terry Pratchett
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This was the definition of eternity; it was the space of time devised by the Great God Om to ensure that everyone got the punishment that was due to them.
Terry Pratchett
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And we don't often get any wading birds in the River Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it's easier for them to walk on the surface.
Terry Pratchett
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London was not designed for cars. Come to that, it wasn't designed for people. It just sort of happened. This created problems, and the solutions that were implemented became the next problems, five or ten or a hundred years down the line.
Terry Pratchett
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Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.
Terry Pratchett
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History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it
Terry Pratchett
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We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still.
Terry Pratchett
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Theories, diverse as they are, have two things in common. They explain the observed facts, and they are completely and utterly wrong.
Terry Pratchett
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The days followed one another patiently. Right back at the beginning of the multiverse they had tried all passing at the same time, and it hadn't worked.
Terry Pratchett
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I had a deprived childhood, you see. I had lots of other kids to play with and my parents bought me outdoor toys and refused to ill-treat me, so it never occurred to me to seek solitary consolation with a good book.
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Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point MY POINT EXACTLY.
Terry Pratchett
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In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
Terry Pratchett
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Picturesque meant - he decided after careful observation of the scenerey that inspired Twoflower to use the word - that the landscape was horribly precipitous. Quaint, when used to describe the occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-ridden and tumbledown. Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, mean 'idiot'.
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Granny knew all about bad fortune-telling. It was harder than the real thing. You needed a good imagination.
Terry Pratchett
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Classically, very few people have considered that cleanliness is next to godliness. A rank loincloth and hair in an advanced state of matted entanglement have generally been the badges of office of prophets whose injunction to disdain earthly things starts with soap.
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And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye.
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The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.
Terry Pratchett
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There are, almost by definition, an unlimited number of Hells - potentially at least a personal one for every living sapient being.
Terry Pratchett
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People are content to wait a long time for salvation, but prefer dinner to turn up inside an hour.
Terry Pratchett
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One of the recurring philosophical questions is: 'Does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when there is no one to hear?' Which says something about the nature of philosophers, because there is always someone in a forest. It may only be a badger, wondering what that cracking noise was, or a squirrel a bit puzzled by all the scenery going upwards, but someone.
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Correct observation followed by meticulous deduction and the precise visualization of goals is vital to the success of any enterprise.
Terry Pratchett
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I can't pretend to understand probability math. But if the universe is so ordered, so — immutable — that the future can be told by a handful of numbers, then why need we go on living?
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The sign, which says: "Do not, under any circumstances, open this door!" - Of course, I've read it. Why do you think I want it opened?.. To see why they wanted it shut, of course. This exchange contains almost all you need to know about human civilization. At least, those bits of it that are now under the sea, fenced off or still smoking.
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Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought.
Terry Pratchett
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Quote of the day
Joy is like restless day; but peace divine Like quiet night; Lead me, O Lord, — till perfect Day shall shine Through Peace to Light.
Adelaide Anne Procter
Terry Pratchett
Creative Commons
Born:
April 28, 1948
Died:
March 12, 2015
(aged 66)
Bio:
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels.
Known for:
The Colour of Magic (1983)
The Shepherd's Crown (2015)
The Wee Free Men (2003)
Good Omens (1990)
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