Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in the morning, is going to be hanged. (GP)
There is a saying ‘You can’t fool an honest man’ which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. (GP)
…Mr Horsefry might well have been a kind, generous and pious man. In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in the wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wandered in out of the rain. Snap judgements can be so unfair. (GP)
‘Freedom may be mankind’s natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling.’ (GP)
‘No sane mortal is truly free, because true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes.’ (GP)
'Money is not a thing, it is not even a process. It is a kind of shared dream. We dream that a small disc of common metal is worth the price of a substantial meal. Once you wake up from that dream, you can swim in a sea of money.’ (GP)
…the man had reached the ‘jolly drunk’ stage and was singing the kind of song that’s hilarious to rugby players and children aged under eleven… (GP)
Women are always significantly under-represented in secret orders. (GP)
‘…this place is curséd.’
‘That’s cursed with an extra ed?’
‘Yes sir. The worst kind.’ (GP)
…every undelivered message is a piece of space-time that lacks another end, a little bundle of effort and emotion floating freely. (GP)
Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards – not ‘not doing magic’ because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you know how easy it is. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn’t been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again. (GP)
‘Always move fast Mr Spools. You never know who’s catching up.’ (GP)
…it’s always worrying to see a journalist take a sudden interest in what you’re saying, especially when you half suspect it was a load of pigeon guano. And it’s worse when they are smiling. (GP)
People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered able to answer, such as ‘Is this the laundry?’ ‘How do you spell surreptitious?’ and, on a regular basis: ‘Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins.’ (GP)
And then thlabber happened. It was a traditional magic term, although Moist didn’t know this. There was a moment in which everything, even things that couldn’t be stretched, felt stretched. And then there was the moment when everything suddenly went back to not being stretched, known as the moment of thlabber. (GP)
Books were a closed book to Moist. (GP)
‘Words are important. And when there is a critical mass of them, they change the nature of the universe.’ (GP)
‘A good woman, that,’ said Groat, as she strode away. ‘Fifth generation of Miss Maccalariats. Maiden name kept for professional purposes, o’course.’
‘They get married?’ From the mob around the makeshift counter came the ringing command: ‘Put that pen back this minute! Do you think I’m made of pens?’
‘Yessir,’ said Groat.
‘Do they bite their husbands’ heads off on their wedding night?’ said Moist.
‘I wouldn’t know that sort of thing, sir,’ said Groat blushing.
‘But she’s even got a bit of a moustache!’
‘Yessir. There’s something for everyone in this wonderful world, sir.’ (GP)
…Adora Belle fought back, and to make sure she fought back even before she was attacked. (GP)
‘…She Reminded Him Of Lela The Volcano Goddess, Who Smokes All The Time Because The God Of Rain Has Rained On Her Lava,’ the golem went on.
‘Yes, but women always complain about that sort of thing,’ said Moist. (GP)
…the whole place began to revolve around the big man, gold being very dense and having a gravity of its own. (GP)
A man who rushes into a burning building to rescue a stupid cat and comes out carrying the cat is seen as a hero, even if he is a rather dumb one. If he comes out sans cat he’s a twit. (GP)
‘They’re holding me pris’ner, sir! They gived me a trouserectomy, sir!’ (GP)
‘…run away from any woman who pronounces “what” with two Hs’. (GP)
…he had his name on a plate on his desk, because doctors are very busy and can’t remember everything… (GP)
‘Incidentally, it’s wisest not to argue with the nursing staff. I find the wisest course of action is to throw some chocolates in one direction and hurry off in the other while their attention is distracted.’ (GP)
…although an elderly man probably has a lot less future than a man of twenty, he’s far more careful of it… (GP)
They were, by their own standards honest men, in that they only did what they knew or suspected that everyone else did... (GP)
Always remember that the crowd which applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show. (GP)
‘The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up.’ (GP)
‘I’ve fallen into good ways.’ (GP)
What was magic, after all, but something that happened at the snap of a finger? Where was the magic in that? It was mumbled words and weird drawings in old books and in the wrong hands it was dangerous as hell, but not one half as dangerous as it could be in the right hands. (GP)
…is it really stealing if what’s stolen isn’t missed? And is it stealing if you’re stealing from thieves? (GP)
Right now he was present in his position as Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, and his long-term purpose was to see that his department’s budget went through on the nod. (GP)
Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn’t care. (GP)
You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible was possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible. And if you failed, well, it had been impossible. (GP)
‘I wouldn’t trust me if I was you. But I would if I was me.’ (GP)
If there’s one thing a wizard hates, it’s having to wait while the person in front of them is in two minds about coleslaw. It’s a salad bar, they say, it’s got the kind of stuff salad bars have, if it was surprising it wouldn’t be a salad bar, you’re not here to look at it. What do you expect to find? Rhino chunks? Pickled coelacanth? (GP)
‘You can’t do that!’ Greenyham protested weakly, but the fire had drained out of him. Mr Stowley had collapsed on the floor, with his head in his hands.
‘Can I not?’ said Vetinari. ‘I am a tyrant. It’s what we do.’ (GP)
…he hadn’t got this job because he was a fine upstanding citizen. Some tasks needed a good honest hammer. Others needed a twisty corkscrew. (GP)
‘The freedom to succeed goes hand in hand with the freedom to fail.’ (GP)
Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known. (GP)
They’d saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel. But in truth it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there for ever provided, naturally, that you don’t go and look.
This is known as Finance. (GP)
There is a saying ‘You can’t fool an honest man’ which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. (GP)
…Mr Horsefry might well have been a kind, generous and pious man. In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in the wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wandered in out of the rain. Snap judgements can be so unfair. (GP)
‘Freedom may be mankind’s natural state, but so is sitting in a tree eating your dinner while it is still wriggling.’ (GP)
‘No sane mortal is truly free, because true freedom is so terrible that only the mad or the divine can face it with open eyes.’ (GP)
'Money is not a thing, it is not even a process. It is a kind of shared dream. We dream that a small disc of common metal is worth the price of a substantial meal. Once you wake up from that dream, you can swim in a sea of money.’ (GP)
…the man had reached the ‘jolly drunk’ stage and was singing the kind of song that’s hilarious to rugby players and children aged under eleven… (GP)
Women are always significantly under-represented in secret orders. (GP)
‘…this place is curséd.’
‘That’s cursed with an extra ed?’
‘Yes sir. The worst kind.’ (GP)
…every undelivered message is a piece of space-time that lacks another end, a little bundle of effort and emotion floating freely. (GP)
Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards – not ‘not doing magic’ because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you know how easy it is. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn’t been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again. (GP)
‘Always move fast Mr Spools. You never know who’s catching up.’ (GP)
…it’s always worrying to see a journalist take a sudden interest in what you’re saying, especially when you half suspect it was a load of pigeon guano. And it’s worse when they are smiling. (GP)
People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered able to answer, such as ‘Is this the laundry?’ ‘How do you spell surreptitious?’ and, on a regular basis: ‘Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins.’ (GP)
And then thlabber happened. It was a traditional magic term, although Moist didn’t know this. There was a moment in which everything, even things that couldn’t be stretched, felt stretched. And then there was the moment when everything suddenly went back to not being stretched, known as the moment of thlabber. (GP)
Books were a closed book to Moist. (GP)
‘Words are important. And when there is a critical mass of them, they change the nature of the universe.’ (GP)
‘A good woman, that,’ said Groat, as she strode away. ‘Fifth generation of Miss Maccalariats. Maiden name kept for professional purposes, o’course.’
‘They get married?’ From the mob around the makeshift counter came the ringing command: ‘Put that pen back this minute! Do you think I’m made of pens?’
‘Yessir,’ said Groat.
‘Do they bite their husbands’ heads off on their wedding night?’ said Moist.
‘I wouldn’t know that sort of thing, sir,’ said Groat blushing.
‘But she’s even got a bit of a moustache!’
‘Yessir. There’s something for everyone in this wonderful world, sir.’ (GP)
…Adora Belle fought back, and to make sure she fought back even before she was attacked. (GP)
‘…She Reminded Him Of Lela The Volcano Goddess, Who Smokes All The Time Because The God Of Rain Has Rained On Her Lava,’ the golem went on.
‘Yes, but women always complain about that sort of thing,’ said Moist. (GP)
…the whole place began to revolve around the big man, gold being very dense and having a gravity of its own. (GP)
A man who rushes into a burning building to rescue a stupid cat and comes out carrying the cat is seen as a hero, even if he is a rather dumb one. If he comes out sans cat he’s a twit. (GP)
‘They’re holding me pris’ner, sir! They gived me a trouserectomy, sir!’ (GP)
‘…run away from any woman who pronounces “what” with two Hs’. (GP)
…he had his name on a plate on his desk, because doctors are very busy and can’t remember everything… (GP)
‘Incidentally, it’s wisest not to argue with the nursing staff. I find the wisest course of action is to throw some chocolates in one direction and hurry off in the other while their attention is distracted.’ (GP)
…although an elderly man probably has a lot less future than a man of twenty, he’s far more careful of it… (GP)
They were, by their own standards honest men, in that they only did what they knew or suspected that everyone else did... (GP)
Always remember that the crowd which applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show. (GP)
‘The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up.’ (GP)
‘I’ve fallen into good ways.’ (GP)
What was magic, after all, but something that happened at the snap of a finger? Where was the magic in that? It was mumbled words and weird drawings in old books and in the wrong hands it was dangerous as hell, but not one half as dangerous as it could be in the right hands. (GP)
…is it really stealing if what’s stolen isn’t missed? And is it stealing if you’re stealing from thieves? (GP)
Right now he was present in his position as Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, and his long-term purpose was to see that his department’s budget went through on the nod. (GP)
Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn’t care. (GP)
You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible was possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible. And if you failed, well, it had been impossible. (GP)
‘I wouldn’t trust me if I was you. But I would if I was me.’ (GP)
If there’s one thing a wizard hates, it’s having to wait while the person in front of them is in two minds about coleslaw. It’s a salad bar, they say, it’s got the kind of stuff salad bars have, if it was surprising it wouldn’t be a salad bar, you’re not here to look at it. What do you expect to find? Rhino chunks? Pickled coelacanth? (GP)
‘You can’t do that!’ Greenyham protested weakly, but the fire had drained out of him. Mr Stowley had collapsed on the floor, with his head in his hands.
‘Can I not?’ said Vetinari. ‘I am a tyrant. It’s what we do.’ (GP)
…he hadn’t got this job because he was a fine upstanding citizen. Some tasks needed a good honest hammer. Others needed a twisty corkscrew. (GP)
‘The freedom to succeed goes hand in hand with the freedom to fail.’ (GP)
Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known. (GP)
They’d saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel. But in truth it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there for ever provided, naturally, that you don’t go and look.
This is known as Finance. (GP)
