Quotes from Gythia (Nanny) Ogg
Greebo was one of her blind spots. While intellectually she would concede that he was indeed a fat, cunning, evil-smelling multiple rapist, she nevertheless instinctively pictured him as the small fluffy kitten he had been decades before. The fact that he had once chased a female wolf up a tree and seriously surprised a she-bear who had been innocently digging for roots didn’t stop her worrying that something bad might happen to him. (WS)
Three marriages and an adventurous girlhood had left Nanny Ogg with thigh muscles that could crack coconuts ... (WS)
'Modern,’ said Granny Weatherwax, with a sniff. ‘When I was a gel, we had a lump of wax and a couple of pins and had to be content. We had to make our own enchantment in them days.’
‘Ah, well, we’ve all passed a lot of water since then,’ said Nanny Ogg sagely. (WS)
‘You’ve got to admit he was real royalty,’ said Nanny Ogg, eventually. ‘It only goes to show, royalty goes eccentric far
better than the likes of you and me.' (WS)
It was one of the few sorrows of Granny Weatherwax’s life that, despite all her efforts, she’d arrived at the peak of her career with a complexion like a rosy apple and all her teeth. No amount of charms could persuade a wart to take root on her handsome if slightly equine features, and vast intakes of sugar only served to give her boundless energy. A wizard she’d consulted had explained it was on account of her having a metabolism, which at least allowed her to feel vaguely superior to Nanny Ogg, who she suspected had never even seen one. (WS)
… Nanny believed that a bit of thrilling and pointless terror was an essential ingredient of the magic of childhood. (WS)
'...what about this rule about not meddling?’ said Magrat.
'Ah,’ said Nanny. She took the girl’s arm. ‘The thing is,’ she explained, ‘as you progress in the Craft, you’ll learn there is another rule. Esme’s obeyed it all her life.’
‘And what’s that?’
'When you break rules, break ‘em good and hard,’ said Nanny, and grinned a set of gums that were more menacing than teeth. (WS)
Ramtop people believed the Ogg feud was a blessing. The thought of them turning their immense energy on the world in general was a terrible one. Fortunately, there was no-one an Ogg would rather fight than another Ogg. It was family. (WS)
'Where’s Nanny?’ she said.
‘She’s lying out on the lawn,’ said Granny. ‘She felt a bit poorly.’ And from outside came the sound of Nanny Ogg being poorly at the top of her voice (WS)
'By gor’, that’s a bloody enormous cat.’
'It’s a lion,’ said Granny Weatherwax, looking at the stuffed head over the fireplace.
‘Must’ve hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘Someone killed it,’ said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.
‘Should think so,’ said Nanny. ‘If I’d seen something like that eatin’ its way through the wall I’d of hit it myself with a poker.' (WA)
'Our Sean read to me in the almanac where there’s all these fearsome wild beasts in foreign parts,’ he whispered. ‘Huge hairy things that leap out on travellers, it said. I’d hate to think what’d happen if they leapt out on mum and Granny.’
Magrat looked up into his big red face.
‘You will see no harm comes to them, won’t you?’ said Jason.
‘Don’t you worry,’ she said, hoping that he needn’t. ‘I’ll do my best.’
Jason nodded. ‘Only it said in the almanac that some of them were nearly extinct anyway,’ he said. (WA)
Magrat unfolded a map. It was creased, damp, and the pencil had run. She pointed cautiously to a smudged area.
‘I think we’re here,’ she said.
‘My word,’ said Nanny Ogg, whose grasp of the principles of cartography was even shakier than Granny’s. ‘Amazing how we can all fit on that little bit of paper.' (WA)
Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling ‘banana’, but didn’t know how you stopped. (WA)
Nanny Ogg sent a number of cards home to her family, not a single one of which got back before she did. This is traditional, and happens everywhere in the universe. (WA)
... anyone who spent much time in the company of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg got used to being stared at; they were the kind of people that filled every space from edge to edge. (WA)
'Words have sex in foreign parts,’ said Nanny hopefully. (WA)
… she was definitely feeling several twinkles short of a glitter and suffering a slight homesick-tinged dip in her usual sunny nature. People didn’t hit you over the head with farmhouses back home. (WA)
Nanny had an unexpected gift for languages; she could be comprehensibly incompetent in a new one within an hour or two. What she spoke was one step away from gibberish but it was authentically foreign gibberish. (Ma)
'You always used to say I was wanton, when we was younger,’ said Nanny.
Granny hesitated, caught momentarily off balance. Then she waved a hand irritably.
‘You was, of course,’ she said dismissively. ‘But you never used magic for it, did you?’
‘Din’t have to,’ said Nanny happily. ‘An off-the-shoulder dress did the trick most of the time.’
‘Right off the shoulder and onto the grass, as I recall,’ said Granny. (WA)
'We're her godmothers,’ said Granny.
‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘We’ve got a wand too,’ said Magrat.
‘But you hate godmothers, Mistress Weatherwax,’ said Mrs Gogol.
‘We’re the other kind,’ said Granny. ‘We’re the kind that give people what they know they really need, not what we think they ought to want.' (WA)
'And I don’t hold with all this giving things funny names so people don’t know what they’re eating,’ said Granny, determined to explore the drawbacks of international cookery to the full. ‘I like stuff that tells you plain what it is, like ... well ... Bubble and Squeak, or ... or...’
‘Spotted Dick,’ said Nanny absently. (WA)
Nanny Ogg quite liked cooking, provided there were other people around to do things like chop up the vegetables and wash the dishes afterwards. (WA)
People like Nanny Ogg turn up everywhere. It’s as if there’s some special morphic generator dedicated to the production of old women who like a laugh and aren’t averse to the odd pint, especially of some drink normally sold in very small glasses. You find them all over the place, often in pairs. (WA)
Nanny Ogg would try anything once. Some things she’d try several thousand times. (WA)
'I don’t mind criticism,’ said Granny. ‘You know me. I’ve never been one to take offence at criticism. No-one could say I’m the sort to take offence at criticism -’
‘Not twice, anyway,’ said Nanny. (WA)
'You’d have to go a long day’s journey to find someone basically nastier than Esme,’ said Nanny Ogg, ‘and this is me sayin’ it. She knows exactly what she is. She was born to be good and she don’t like it.' (WA)
'Nothing wrong with being self-assertive,’ said Nanny. ‘Self-asserting’s what witching’s all about.’
‘I never said there was anything wrong with it,’ said Granny. ‘I told her there was nothing wrong with it. You can be as self-assertive as you like, I said, just so long as you do what you’re told.' (WA)
‘… a bit of hussing never did anyone any harm.’ (WA)
'My name’s Casanunda,’ he said. ‘I’m reputed to be the world’s greatest lover. What do you think?’
Nanny Ogg looked him up and down or, at least, down and further down.
‘You’re a dwarf,’ she said.
‘Size isn’t important.' (WA)
'I’m a world-famous liar.’
‘Is that true?’
‘No.’
‘What about you being the world’s greatest lover?’
There was silence for a while.
‘Well maybe I’m only No. 2,’ said Casanunda. ‘But I try harder.' (WA)
'How about a date?’
‘How old do you think I am?’ said Nanny.
Casanunda considered. ‘All right, then. How about a prune?' (WA)
‘He’s a frog,’ said Granny flatly.
‘But only on the inside,’ said Lily.
‘Inside’s where it counts,’ said Granny.
‘Outside’s quite important, mind’ said Nanny. (WA)
... they say travelin broadens the mind, I reckon I could pull mine out my ears now and knot it under my chin ... (WA)
'It’s not staying in the same place that’s the problem,’ said Nanny, ‘it’s not letting your mind wander.' (WA)
Nanny kicked her red boots together idly.
‘Well, I suppose there’s no place like home,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Granny Weatherwax, still looking thoughtful. ‘No. There’s a billion places like home. But only one of ‘em’s where you live.’
‘So, we’re going back?’ said Magrat.
‘Yes.’
But they went the long way, and saw the elephant. (WA)
Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of housework in other people. (LL)
Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck. (LL)
Food as an aphrodisiac was not a concept that had ever caught on in Lancre, apart from Nanny Ogg’s famous Carrot and Oyster Pie.*
*Carrots so you can see in the dark, she’d explain, and oysters so’s you’ve got something to look at. (LL)
It wasn’t that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.
There had been plenty of singers whose high notes could smash a glass, but Nanny’s high C could clean it. (LL)
'I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult," said Granny firmly. ‘Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.’
‘But all them things exist,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages ‘em.' (LL)
Nanny Ogg had a pragmatic attitude to the truth; she told it if it was convenient and she couldn’t be bothered to make up something more interesting. (LL)
'We taught her everything she knows,’ said Granny Weatherwax.
‘Yeah,’ said Nanny Ogg, as they disappeared into the bracken. ‘D’you think ... maybe...?’
‘What?’ ‘D’you think maybe we ought to have taught her everything we know?’
‘It’d take too long.' (LL)
'I feel like a fish out of water.'
'Well, the way I see it, it's up to you to make you're own water,' said Nanny ... (LL)
'Our stars are entwined,’ said Casanunda. ‘We’re fated for one another. I wants your body, Mrs. Ogg.’
‘I’m still using it.' (LL)
'This is damn good wine,’ she said, picking up another bottle. ‘What did you say it’s called?’ She peered at the label. ‘Chateau Maison? Chat-eau ... that’s foreign for cat’s water, you know, but that’s only their way, I know it ain’t real cat’s water. Real cat’s water is sharper.' (LL)
'You haven’t got the morals of a cat, Gytha Ogg.’
‘Now, Esme, you know that’s not true.’
‘All right. You have got the morals of a cat, then.’
‘That’s better.' (LL)
'Act your age, Gytha.’
‘Act? Don’t have to act, can do it automatic,’ said Nanny. ‘Acting half my age…now that’s the difficult trick.' (LL)
Distillation of alcohol was illegal in Lancre. On the other hand, King Verence had long ago given up any idea of stopping a witch doing something she wanted to do, so merely required Nanny Ogg to keep her still somewhere it wasn’t obvious. She thoroughly approved of the prohibition, since this gave her an unchallenged market for her own product, known wherever men fell backwards into a ditch as ‘suicider'. (Ma)
Nanny’s philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down. (Ma)
Nanny Ogg usually went to bed early. After all, she was an old lady. Sometimes she went to bed as early as 6 a.m. (Ma)
Agnes was, Nanny considered, quite good-looking in an expansive kind of way; she was a fine figure of typical Lancre womanhood. This meant she was approximately two womanhoods from anywhere else. (Ma)
Lancre's only other singer of note was Nanny Ogg, whose attitude to songs was purely ballistic. You just pointed your voice at the end of the verse and went for it. (Ma)
Other people salted away money for their old age, but Nanny preferred to accumulate memories. (Ma)
'Gytha, is there anything in the whole world you can’t make sound grubby?’
‘Not found it yet, Esme,’ said Nanny brightly. (Ma)
'It's only money.’
‘Yes, but it’s only my money, not only your money,’ Nanny pointed out.
‘We witches have always held everything in common, you know that,’ said Granny.
‘Well, yes,’ said Nanny, and once again cut to the heart of the sociopolitical debate. ‘It’s easy to hold everything in common when no one’s got anything.' (Ma)
Nanny Ogg was basically a law-abiding person when she had no reason to break the law, and therefore had that kind of person’s attitude to law-enforcement officers, which was one of deep and permanent distrust. (Ma)
'Let me through. I’m a nosy person ...' (Ma)
Nanny rather liked the theatrical world. It was its own kind of magic. That was why Esme disliked it, she reckoned. It was the magic of illusions and misdirection and foolery, and that was fine by Nanny Ogg, because you couldn’t be married three times without a little fooling. (Ma)
'Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,’ said Nanny, who also had the true witch’s ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. ‘There’s your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like “Oh oh oh, I am dyin’, oh, I am dyin’, oh, oh, oh, that’s what I’m doin’” and there’s your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes “Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!” although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That’s basically all of opera, reely.’
‘What? Either dyin’ or drinkin’ beer?’
‘Basically, yes,’ said Nanny, contriving to suggest that this was the whole gamut of human experience.
‘And that’s opera?’
‘We-ll…there might be some other stuff. But mostly it’s stout or stabbin’.' (Ma)
People didn’t take any notice of little old ladies who looked as though they fitted in, and Nanny Ogg could fit in faster than a dead chicken in a maggot factory. (Ma)
Nanny enjoyed music, as well. If music were the food of love, she was game for a sonata and chips at any time. (Ma)
'You never have been very good at numbers, have you?’ said Granny. Now she drew a circle around the final figure.
‘Oh, you know me, Esme’ said Nanny cheerfully. ‘I couldn’t subtract a fart from a plate of beans.' (Ma)
'Let’s see what else we’ve got ... ah, has anybody got an opener for a bottle of beer?’
A man in the corner indicated that he might have such a thing.
‘Fine,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Anyone got something to drink a bottle of beer out of?’
Another man nodded hopefully.
‘Good,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Now, has anyone got a bottle of beer?' (Ma)
Nanny Ogg could see the future in the froth on a beermug. It invariably showed that she was going to enjoy a refreshing drink which she almost certainly was not going to pay for. (Ma)
'Gytha Ogg, you wouldn’t be a witch if you couldn’t jump to conclusions, right?’
Nanny nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’ There was no shame in it. Sometimes there wasn’t time to do anything else but take a flying leap. Sometimes you had to trust to experience and intuition and general awareness and take a running jump. Nanny herself could clear quite a tall conclusion from a standing start. (Ma)
Walter's face was an agony of indecision but, erratic though his thinking might have been, it was no match for Nanny Ogg’s meretricious duplicity. He was up against a mind that regarded truth as a reference point but certainly not as a shackle. Nanny Ogg could think her way through a corkscrew in a tornado without touching the sides. (Ma)
'I’m Mrs Ogg,’said Nanny Ogg.
The man looked her up and down.
‘Oh yes? Can you identify yourself?’
‘Certainly. I’d know me anywhere.' (Ma)
Nanny Ogg found herself embarrassed even to think about this, and this was unusual because embarrassment normally came as naturally to Nanny as altruism comes to a cat. (Ma)
She gave a depreciating little chuckle. And if Nanny Ogg had been listening, she would have resolved as follows: that no maddened cackle from Black Aliss of infamous memory, no evil little giggle from some crazed vampyre whose morals were worse than his spelling, no side-splitting guffaw from the most inventive torturer, was quite so unnerving as a happy little chuckle from a Granny Weatherwax about to do what’s best. (Ma)
'I can't start repenting at my time of life. I'd never get any work done. Anyway,' she added, 'I ain't sorry for most of it.' (CJ)
'But that’s just a bit of superstition, isn’t it? Witches don’t have to come in threes.’
‘Oh, no. Course not,’ said Nanny. ‘You can have any number up to about, oh, four or five.’
‘What happens if there’s more, then. Something awful?’
‘Bloody great row, usually,’ said Nanny. (CJ)
'People like to see a bit of bellowing in a king. The odd belch is always popular too. Even a bit of carousing'd help if he could manage it. You know, quaffing and such.' (CJ)
Nanny Ogg had always considered herself unshockable, but there's no such thing. Shocks can come from unexpected directions. (CJ)
'Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do.' (CJ)
'People need something today but they generally need something else tomorrow.' (CJ)
... there was probably no combination of vowels that could do justice to the cry Nanny Ogg made on seeing a young baby. It included sounds known only to cats. (CJ)
'Nothing like being stared at by a teddybear to put a young man off his stroke,' said Nanny Ogg. (CJ)
Through a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke Nanny reflected that Agnes read books. All the witches who’d lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn’t, the reason being that the words got in the way. (CJ)
The wording began:
‘You are cordially invited…’
…and was in that posh runny writing that was hard to read but ever so official. Nanny Ogg grinned and tucked the card back on the mantelpiece. She liked the idea of ‘cordially’. It had a rich, a thick and above all an alcoholic sound. (CJ)
... like many old ladies, Nanny Ogg was a bottomless pit for free food. (CJ)
People often got the wrong idea about Nanny Ogg, and she took care to see that they did. (CJ)
Nanny could find an innuendo in ‘Good morning.’ She could certainly find one in ‘innuendo.' (CJ)
‘I feel a bit…odd,’ said Agnes.
‘Ah, could be the drink,’ said Nanny.
‘I haven’t had any!’
‘No? Well, there’s the problem right there.' (CJ)
'Oh, don’t blame yourself, Mrs. Ogg. I’m sure others will do that for you -' (CJ)
'Vampires are very anal-retentive, you see?’
‘I shouldn’t like meeting one that was the opposite,’said Nanny. (CJ)
Not many people ever tasted Nanny Ogg’s home-made brandy; it was technically impossible. Once it encountered the warmth of the human mouth it immediately turned into fumes. You drank it via your sinuses. (CJ)
'How does Perdita work, then?’ she said.
‘Look, you know the part of you that wants to do all the things you don’t dare do, and thinks the thoughts you don’t dare
think?’
Nanny’s face stayed blank. ‘Like ... maybe ... rip off all your clothes and run naked in the rain?’ she hazarded.
‘Oh, yes. Right,’ said Nanny.
‘Well ... I suppose Perdita is that part of me.’
‘Really? I’ve always been that part of me,’ said Nanny. ‘The important thing is to remember where you left your clothes.' (CJ)
'You mean just because she’s a woman she should use sexual wiles on him?’ said Magrat. ‘This is so ... so ... well, it’s so Nanny Ogg, that’s all I can say.’
‘She should use any wile she can lay her hands on,’said Nanny. (CJ)
... if I knew I’d got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I’d go into battle wearing very heavy boots - (CJ)
''scuse me,’ said the raven, ‘but how come Miss Ogg became Mrs Ogg? Sounds like a bit of a rural arrangement, if you catch my meaning.’
WITCHES ARE MATRILINEAL, said Death. THEY FIND IT MUCH EASIER TO CHANGE MEN THAN TO CHANGE NAMES. (TOT)
Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human.' (TOT)
‘…I always say the occasional tremble does you good.’ (WFM)
... Nanny was the kind of inconvenient person who notices everything. (W)
'... when I was a young girl, a young man nearly threw himself off the Lancre Bridge because I spurned his advances.’
‘He did? What happened?’
‘I unspurned ’em.' (W)
'... do not become a strumpet like Mrs Ogg,’said Miss Treason.
‘I’m not very musical,’ said Tiffany uncertainly. (W)
Nanny Ogg changed the way people thought, even if it was only for a few minutes. She left people thinking they were slightly better people. They weren’t, but as Nanny said, it gave them something to live up to. (W)
... once you’ve told Nanny Ogg you’d more or less told everyone else. (W)
'Human being first, witch second; hard to remember, easy to do.' (ISWM)
... Mrs Ogg has a very vague attitude to lengths except in humorously anatomical areas. (NOC)
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, which just goes to show they’re as confused about anatomy as they gen’rally are about everything else, unless they’re talking about instructions on how to stab him, in which case a better way is up and under the ribcage. (NOC)
If some food wasn’t so expensive, no one would eat it. (NOC)
It’s amazing what you can do with a little charm and a lot of blackmail. (NOC)
... he was looking for the Fountain of Youth and the odd thing about this sort of business is that it’s never, ever close to. You’d think, on average, that some of these lost fountains of youth, tree of life and cities of gold would be really close, but they never are. And you never get people from a long way off coming to our part of the world lookin’ for, as it might be, the Cottage of Doom or the Lost Chicken Shed. (NOC)
…Slumpie is a bit like chop suey, which is Agatean for ‘all the labels have fallen off the tins’,and you can make it out of more or less anything so long as you call it Slumpie. (NOC)
Her mind is so broad you could use it as a plank. (PP)
Nanny Ogg's wild youth was an open book, although only available in plain covers. (SLF)
Nanny had nothing against witches being married. It wasn’t as if there were rules. She herself had had many husbands, and had even been married to three of them. (SLF)
Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them. But Nanny knew that people don’t always appreciate right. (SLF)
‘Always thought I’d be the first to go, what with my drinkin’ and suchlike, especially the suchlike. I’ve done a lot o’ that.’ In fact, Nanny Ogg had done a great deal of everything, and was commonly held to be so broadminded that you could pull her mind out through her ears and tie a hat on it. (SC)
“Enough” wasn’t really a long enough word to describe the numerous little tasks any young woman marrying into the Ogg family found were expected of her. (SC)
“We’re witches, Tiffany. We has the power for a reason. We just ‘as to make sure as it’s the right reason …” (SC)
Magrat took a cake by its little case rather carefully. Some of Nanny Ogg’s recipes could include …. unusual ingredients, and she already had three children. (SC)
Three marriages and an adventurous girlhood had left Nanny Ogg with thigh muscles that could crack coconuts ... (WS)
'Modern,’ said Granny Weatherwax, with a sniff. ‘When I was a gel, we had a lump of wax and a couple of pins and had to be content. We had to make our own enchantment in them days.’
‘Ah, well, we’ve all passed a lot of water since then,’ said Nanny Ogg sagely. (WS)
‘You’ve got to admit he was real royalty,’ said Nanny Ogg, eventually. ‘It only goes to show, royalty goes eccentric far
better than the likes of you and me.' (WS)
It was one of the few sorrows of Granny Weatherwax’s life that, despite all her efforts, she’d arrived at the peak of her career with a complexion like a rosy apple and all her teeth. No amount of charms could persuade a wart to take root on her handsome if slightly equine features, and vast intakes of sugar only served to give her boundless energy. A wizard she’d consulted had explained it was on account of her having a metabolism, which at least allowed her to feel vaguely superior to Nanny Ogg, who she suspected had never even seen one. (WS)
… Nanny believed that a bit of thrilling and pointless terror was an essential ingredient of the magic of childhood. (WS)
'...what about this rule about not meddling?’ said Magrat.
'Ah,’ said Nanny. She took the girl’s arm. ‘The thing is,’ she explained, ‘as you progress in the Craft, you’ll learn there is another rule. Esme’s obeyed it all her life.’
‘And what’s that?’
'When you break rules, break ‘em good and hard,’ said Nanny, and grinned a set of gums that were more menacing than teeth. (WS)
Ramtop people believed the Ogg feud was a blessing. The thought of them turning their immense energy on the world in general was a terrible one. Fortunately, there was no-one an Ogg would rather fight than another Ogg. It was family. (WS)
'Where’s Nanny?’ she said.
‘She’s lying out on the lawn,’ said Granny. ‘She felt a bit poorly.’ And from outside came the sound of Nanny Ogg being poorly at the top of her voice (WS)
'By gor’, that’s a bloody enormous cat.’
'It’s a lion,’ said Granny Weatherwax, looking at the stuffed head over the fireplace.
‘Must’ve hit the wall at a hell of a speed, whatever it was,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘Someone killed it,’ said Granny Weatherwax, surveying the room.
‘Should think so,’ said Nanny. ‘If I’d seen something like that eatin’ its way through the wall I’d of hit it myself with a poker.' (WA)
'Our Sean read to me in the almanac where there’s all these fearsome wild beasts in foreign parts,’ he whispered. ‘Huge hairy things that leap out on travellers, it said. I’d hate to think what’d happen if they leapt out on mum and Granny.’
Magrat looked up into his big red face.
‘You will see no harm comes to them, won’t you?’ said Jason.
‘Don’t you worry,’ she said, hoping that he needn’t. ‘I’ll do my best.’
Jason nodded. ‘Only it said in the almanac that some of them were nearly extinct anyway,’ he said. (WA)
Magrat unfolded a map. It was creased, damp, and the pencil had run. She pointed cautiously to a smudged area.
‘I think we’re here,’ she said.
‘My word,’ said Nanny Ogg, whose grasp of the principles of cartography was even shakier than Granny’s. ‘Amazing how we can all fit on that little bit of paper.' (WA)
Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling ‘banana’, but didn’t know how you stopped. (WA)
Nanny Ogg sent a number of cards home to her family, not a single one of which got back before she did. This is traditional, and happens everywhere in the universe. (WA)
... anyone who spent much time in the company of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg got used to being stared at; they were the kind of people that filled every space from edge to edge. (WA)
'Words have sex in foreign parts,’ said Nanny hopefully. (WA)
… she was definitely feeling several twinkles short of a glitter and suffering a slight homesick-tinged dip in her usual sunny nature. People didn’t hit you over the head with farmhouses back home. (WA)
Nanny had an unexpected gift for languages; she could be comprehensibly incompetent in a new one within an hour or two. What she spoke was one step away from gibberish but it was authentically foreign gibberish. (Ma)
'You always used to say I was wanton, when we was younger,’ said Nanny.
Granny hesitated, caught momentarily off balance. Then she waved a hand irritably.
‘You was, of course,’ she said dismissively. ‘But you never used magic for it, did you?’
‘Din’t have to,’ said Nanny happily. ‘An off-the-shoulder dress did the trick most of the time.’
‘Right off the shoulder and onto the grass, as I recall,’ said Granny. (WA)
'We're her godmothers,’ said Granny.
‘That’s right,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘We’ve got a wand too,’ said Magrat.
‘But you hate godmothers, Mistress Weatherwax,’ said Mrs Gogol.
‘We’re the other kind,’ said Granny. ‘We’re the kind that give people what they know they really need, not what we think they ought to want.' (WA)
'And I don’t hold with all this giving things funny names so people don’t know what they’re eating,’ said Granny, determined to explore the drawbacks of international cookery to the full. ‘I like stuff that tells you plain what it is, like ... well ... Bubble and Squeak, or ... or...’
‘Spotted Dick,’ said Nanny absently. (WA)
Nanny Ogg quite liked cooking, provided there were other people around to do things like chop up the vegetables and wash the dishes afterwards. (WA)
People like Nanny Ogg turn up everywhere. It’s as if there’s some special morphic generator dedicated to the production of old women who like a laugh and aren’t averse to the odd pint, especially of some drink normally sold in very small glasses. You find them all over the place, often in pairs. (WA)
Nanny Ogg would try anything once. Some things she’d try several thousand times. (WA)
'I don’t mind criticism,’ said Granny. ‘You know me. I’ve never been one to take offence at criticism. No-one could say I’m the sort to take offence at criticism -’
‘Not twice, anyway,’ said Nanny. (WA)
'You’d have to go a long day’s journey to find someone basically nastier than Esme,’ said Nanny Ogg, ‘and this is me sayin’ it. She knows exactly what she is. She was born to be good and she don’t like it.' (WA)
'Nothing wrong with being self-assertive,’ said Nanny. ‘Self-asserting’s what witching’s all about.’
‘I never said there was anything wrong with it,’ said Granny. ‘I told her there was nothing wrong with it. You can be as self-assertive as you like, I said, just so long as you do what you’re told.' (WA)
‘… a bit of hussing never did anyone any harm.’ (WA)
'My name’s Casanunda,’ he said. ‘I’m reputed to be the world’s greatest lover. What do you think?’
Nanny Ogg looked him up and down or, at least, down and further down.
‘You’re a dwarf,’ she said.
‘Size isn’t important.' (WA)
'I’m a world-famous liar.’
‘Is that true?’
‘No.’
‘What about you being the world’s greatest lover?’
There was silence for a while.
‘Well maybe I’m only No. 2,’ said Casanunda. ‘But I try harder.' (WA)
'How about a date?’
‘How old do you think I am?’ said Nanny.
Casanunda considered. ‘All right, then. How about a prune?' (WA)
‘He’s a frog,’ said Granny flatly.
‘But only on the inside,’ said Lily.
‘Inside’s where it counts,’ said Granny.
‘Outside’s quite important, mind’ said Nanny. (WA)
... they say travelin broadens the mind, I reckon I could pull mine out my ears now and knot it under my chin ... (WA)
'It’s not staying in the same place that’s the problem,’ said Nanny, ‘it’s not letting your mind wander.' (WA)
Nanny kicked her red boots together idly.
‘Well, I suppose there’s no place like home,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Granny Weatherwax, still looking thoughtful. ‘No. There’s a billion places like home. But only one of ‘em’s where you live.’
‘So, we’re going back?’ said Magrat.
‘Yes.’
But they went the long way, and saw the elephant. (WA)
Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of housework in other people. (LL)
Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck. (LL)
Food as an aphrodisiac was not a concept that had ever caught on in Lancre, apart from Nanny Ogg’s famous Carrot and Oyster Pie.*
*Carrots so you can see in the dark, she’d explain, and oysters so’s you’ve got something to look at. (LL)
It wasn’t that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.
There had been plenty of singers whose high notes could smash a glass, but Nanny’s high C could clean it. (LL)
'I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult," said Granny firmly. ‘Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.’
‘But all them things exist,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages ‘em.' (LL)
Nanny Ogg had a pragmatic attitude to the truth; she told it if it was convenient and she couldn’t be bothered to make up something more interesting. (LL)
'We taught her everything she knows,’ said Granny Weatherwax.
‘Yeah,’ said Nanny Ogg, as they disappeared into the bracken. ‘D’you think ... maybe...?’
‘What?’ ‘D’you think maybe we ought to have taught her everything we know?’
‘It’d take too long.' (LL)
'I feel like a fish out of water.'
'Well, the way I see it, it's up to you to make you're own water,' said Nanny ... (LL)
'Our stars are entwined,’ said Casanunda. ‘We’re fated for one another. I wants your body, Mrs. Ogg.’
‘I’m still using it.' (LL)
'This is damn good wine,’ she said, picking up another bottle. ‘What did you say it’s called?’ She peered at the label. ‘Chateau Maison? Chat-eau ... that’s foreign for cat’s water, you know, but that’s only their way, I know it ain’t real cat’s water. Real cat’s water is sharper.' (LL)
'You haven’t got the morals of a cat, Gytha Ogg.’
‘Now, Esme, you know that’s not true.’
‘All right. You have got the morals of a cat, then.’
‘That’s better.' (LL)
'Act your age, Gytha.’
‘Act? Don’t have to act, can do it automatic,’ said Nanny. ‘Acting half my age…now that’s the difficult trick.' (LL)
Distillation of alcohol was illegal in Lancre. On the other hand, King Verence had long ago given up any idea of stopping a witch doing something she wanted to do, so merely required Nanny Ogg to keep her still somewhere it wasn’t obvious. She thoroughly approved of the prohibition, since this gave her an unchallenged market for her own product, known wherever men fell backwards into a ditch as ‘suicider'. (Ma)
Nanny’s philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down. (Ma)
Nanny Ogg usually went to bed early. After all, she was an old lady. Sometimes she went to bed as early as 6 a.m. (Ma)
Agnes was, Nanny considered, quite good-looking in an expansive kind of way; she was a fine figure of typical Lancre womanhood. This meant she was approximately two womanhoods from anywhere else. (Ma)
Lancre's only other singer of note was Nanny Ogg, whose attitude to songs was purely ballistic. You just pointed your voice at the end of the verse and went for it. (Ma)
Other people salted away money for their old age, but Nanny preferred to accumulate memories. (Ma)
'Gytha, is there anything in the whole world you can’t make sound grubby?’
‘Not found it yet, Esme,’ said Nanny brightly. (Ma)
'It's only money.’
‘Yes, but it’s only my money, not only your money,’ Nanny pointed out.
‘We witches have always held everything in common, you know that,’ said Granny.
‘Well, yes,’ said Nanny, and once again cut to the heart of the sociopolitical debate. ‘It’s easy to hold everything in common when no one’s got anything.' (Ma)
Nanny Ogg was basically a law-abiding person when she had no reason to break the law, and therefore had that kind of person’s attitude to law-enforcement officers, which was one of deep and permanent distrust. (Ma)
'Let me through. I’m a nosy person ...' (Ma)
Nanny rather liked the theatrical world. It was its own kind of magic. That was why Esme disliked it, she reckoned. It was the magic of illusions and misdirection and foolery, and that was fine by Nanny Ogg, because you couldn’t be married three times without a little fooling. (Ma)
'Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,’ said Nanny, who also had the true witch’s ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. ‘There’s your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like “Oh oh oh, I am dyin’, oh, I am dyin’, oh, oh, oh, that’s what I’m doin’” and there’s your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes “Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!” although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That’s basically all of opera, reely.’
‘What? Either dyin’ or drinkin’ beer?’
‘Basically, yes,’ said Nanny, contriving to suggest that this was the whole gamut of human experience.
‘And that’s opera?’
‘We-ll…there might be some other stuff. But mostly it’s stout or stabbin’.' (Ma)
People didn’t take any notice of little old ladies who looked as though they fitted in, and Nanny Ogg could fit in faster than a dead chicken in a maggot factory. (Ma)
Nanny enjoyed music, as well. If music were the food of love, she was game for a sonata and chips at any time. (Ma)
'You never have been very good at numbers, have you?’ said Granny. Now she drew a circle around the final figure.
‘Oh, you know me, Esme’ said Nanny cheerfully. ‘I couldn’t subtract a fart from a plate of beans.' (Ma)
'Let’s see what else we’ve got ... ah, has anybody got an opener for a bottle of beer?’
A man in the corner indicated that he might have such a thing.
‘Fine,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Anyone got something to drink a bottle of beer out of?’
Another man nodded hopefully.
‘Good,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘Now, has anyone got a bottle of beer?' (Ma)
Nanny Ogg could see the future in the froth on a beermug. It invariably showed that she was going to enjoy a refreshing drink which she almost certainly was not going to pay for. (Ma)
'Gytha Ogg, you wouldn’t be a witch if you couldn’t jump to conclusions, right?’
Nanny nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’ There was no shame in it. Sometimes there wasn’t time to do anything else but take a flying leap. Sometimes you had to trust to experience and intuition and general awareness and take a running jump. Nanny herself could clear quite a tall conclusion from a standing start. (Ma)
Walter's face was an agony of indecision but, erratic though his thinking might have been, it was no match for Nanny Ogg’s meretricious duplicity. He was up against a mind that regarded truth as a reference point but certainly not as a shackle. Nanny Ogg could think her way through a corkscrew in a tornado without touching the sides. (Ma)
'I’m Mrs Ogg,’said Nanny Ogg.
The man looked her up and down.
‘Oh yes? Can you identify yourself?’
‘Certainly. I’d know me anywhere.' (Ma)
Nanny Ogg found herself embarrassed even to think about this, and this was unusual because embarrassment normally came as naturally to Nanny as altruism comes to a cat. (Ma)
She gave a depreciating little chuckle. And if Nanny Ogg had been listening, she would have resolved as follows: that no maddened cackle from Black Aliss of infamous memory, no evil little giggle from some crazed vampyre whose morals were worse than his spelling, no side-splitting guffaw from the most inventive torturer, was quite so unnerving as a happy little chuckle from a Granny Weatherwax about to do what’s best. (Ma)
'I can't start repenting at my time of life. I'd never get any work done. Anyway,' she added, 'I ain't sorry for most of it.' (CJ)
'But that’s just a bit of superstition, isn’t it? Witches don’t have to come in threes.’
‘Oh, no. Course not,’ said Nanny. ‘You can have any number up to about, oh, four or five.’
‘What happens if there’s more, then. Something awful?’
‘Bloody great row, usually,’ said Nanny. (CJ)
'People like to see a bit of bellowing in a king. The odd belch is always popular too. Even a bit of carousing'd help if he could manage it. You know, quaffing and such.' (CJ)
Nanny Ogg had always considered herself unshockable, but there's no such thing. Shocks can come from unexpected directions. (CJ)
'Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do.' (CJ)
'People need something today but they generally need something else tomorrow.' (CJ)
... there was probably no combination of vowels that could do justice to the cry Nanny Ogg made on seeing a young baby. It included sounds known only to cats. (CJ)
'Nothing like being stared at by a teddybear to put a young man off his stroke,' said Nanny Ogg. (CJ)
Through a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke Nanny reflected that Agnes read books. All the witches who’d lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn’t, the reason being that the words got in the way. (CJ)
The wording began:
‘You are cordially invited…’
…and was in that posh runny writing that was hard to read but ever so official. Nanny Ogg grinned and tucked the card back on the mantelpiece. She liked the idea of ‘cordially’. It had a rich, a thick and above all an alcoholic sound. (CJ)
... like many old ladies, Nanny Ogg was a bottomless pit for free food. (CJ)
People often got the wrong idea about Nanny Ogg, and she took care to see that they did. (CJ)
Nanny could find an innuendo in ‘Good morning.’ She could certainly find one in ‘innuendo.' (CJ)
‘I feel a bit…odd,’ said Agnes.
‘Ah, could be the drink,’ said Nanny.
‘I haven’t had any!’
‘No? Well, there’s the problem right there.' (CJ)
'Oh, don’t blame yourself, Mrs. Ogg. I’m sure others will do that for you -' (CJ)
'Vampires are very anal-retentive, you see?’
‘I shouldn’t like meeting one that was the opposite,’said Nanny. (CJ)
Not many people ever tasted Nanny Ogg’s home-made brandy; it was technically impossible. Once it encountered the warmth of the human mouth it immediately turned into fumes. You drank it via your sinuses. (CJ)
'How does Perdita work, then?’ she said.
‘Look, you know the part of you that wants to do all the things you don’t dare do, and thinks the thoughts you don’t dare
think?’
Nanny’s face stayed blank. ‘Like ... maybe ... rip off all your clothes and run naked in the rain?’ she hazarded.
‘Oh, yes. Right,’ said Nanny.
‘Well ... I suppose Perdita is that part of me.’
‘Really? I’ve always been that part of me,’ said Nanny. ‘The important thing is to remember where you left your clothes.' (CJ)
'You mean just because she’s a woman she should use sexual wiles on him?’ said Magrat. ‘This is so ... so ... well, it’s so Nanny Ogg, that’s all I can say.’
‘She should use any wile she can lay her hands on,’said Nanny. (CJ)
... if I knew I’d got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I’d go into battle wearing very heavy boots - (CJ)
''scuse me,’ said the raven, ‘but how come Miss Ogg became Mrs Ogg? Sounds like a bit of a rural arrangement, if you catch my meaning.’
WITCHES ARE MATRILINEAL, said Death. THEY FIND IT MUCH EASIER TO CHANGE MEN THAN TO CHANGE NAMES. (TOT)
Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human.' (TOT)
‘…I always say the occasional tremble does you good.’ (WFM)
... Nanny was the kind of inconvenient person who notices everything. (W)
'... when I was a young girl, a young man nearly threw himself off the Lancre Bridge because I spurned his advances.’
‘He did? What happened?’
‘I unspurned ’em.' (W)
'... do not become a strumpet like Mrs Ogg,’said Miss Treason.
‘I’m not very musical,’ said Tiffany uncertainly. (W)
Nanny Ogg changed the way people thought, even if it was only for a few minutes. She left people thinking they were slightly better people. They weren’t, but as Nanny said, it gave them something to live up to. (W)
... once you’ve told Nanny Ogg you’d more or less told everyone else. (W)
'Human being first, witch second; hard to remember, easy to do.' (ISWM)
... Mrs Ogg has a very vague attitude to lengths except in humorously anatomical areas. (NOC)
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, which just goes to show they’re as confused about anatomy as they gen’rally are about everything else, unless they’re talking about instructions on how to stab him, in which case a better way is up and under the ribcage. (NOC)
If some food wasn’t so expensive, no one would eat it. (NOC)
It’s amazing what you can do with a little charm and a lot of blackmail. (NOC)
... he was looking for the Fountain of Youth and the odd thing about this sort of business is that it’s never, ever close to. You’d think, on average, that some of these lost fountains of youth, tree of life and cities of gold would be really close, but they never are. And you never get people from a long way off coming to our part of the world lookin’ for, as it might be, the Cottage of Doom or the Lost Chicken Shed. (NOC)
…Slumpie is a bit like chop suey, which is Agatean for ‘all the labels have fallen off the tins’,and you can make it out of more or less anything so long as you call it Slumpie. (NOC)
Her mind is so broad you could use it as a plank. (PP)
Nanny Ogg's wild youth was an open book, although only available in plain covers. (SLF)
Nanny had nothing against witches being married. It wasn’t as if there were rules. She herself had had many husbands, and had even been married to three of them. (SLF)
Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them. But Nanny knew that people don’t always appreciate right. (SLF)
‘Always thought I’d be the first to go, what with my drinkin’ and suchlike, especially the suchlike. I’ve done a lot o’ that.’ In fact, Nanny Ogg had done a great deal of everything, and was commonly held to be so broadminded that you could pull her mind out through her ears and tie a hat on it. (SC)
“Enough” wasn’t really a long enough word to describe the numerous little tasks any young woman marrying into the Ogg family found were expected of her. (SC)
“We’re witches, Tiffany. We has the power for a reason. We just ‘as to make sure as it’s the right reason …” (SC)
Magrat took a cake by its little case rather carefully. Some of Nanny Ogg’s recipes could include …. unusual ingredients, and she already had three children. (SC)
