Quote collection
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"The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably 'Doctor Who.' What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe."
"I'm glad a genre writer has got a knighthood, but stunned that it was me."
"What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you're hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference."
""There's a door," he whispered. "Where does it go?" "It stays where it is, I think," said Rincewind."
"If I were you, I'd sue my face for slander."
"And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head."
"I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly. He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?"
"The calendar of the Theocracy of Muntab counts down, not up. No-one knows why, but it might not be a good idea to hang around and find out."
"Ankh-Morpork! Pearl of cities! This is not a completely accurate description, of course — it was not round and shiny — but even its worst enemies would agree that if you had to liken Ankh-Morpork to anything, then it might as well be a piece of rubbish covered with the diseased secretions of a dying mollusc."
"The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things."
"He helped the Librarian up. There was a red glow in the ape's eyes. It had tried to steal his books. This was probably the best proof any wizard could require that the trolleys were brainless."
"[Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it!"
"When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary."
"He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato."
"You can't find a hermit to teach you herming, because of course that rather spoils the whole thing."
"And then you bit onto them, and learned once again that Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler could find a use for bits of an animal that the animal didn't know it had got. Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried onions and mustard people would eat anything."
"Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's all because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place."
"Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned."
"I'd like to stand up for the rights of people who put everything on their burger - chutney, mustard, pickle, mustard pickle, tomato sauce... It is common knowledge in my family that I can't tell the difference between a veggie burger and a meat one, because the ratio of burger to pickles is so high."
"The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned by no later than the date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality."