‘... maybe it’s wrong to base one’s future on a book of fairy stories.’ (ISWM)
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... there was something about his expression, as of a rat who was expecting cheese right around the next corner, and had been expecting cheese around the last corner too, and the corner before that, and, although the world has turned out so far to be full of corners yet completely innocent of any cheese at all, was nevertheless quite certain that, just around the corner, cheese awaited. (NW)
'Anyone can rise if they have enough yeast.' (Do)
‘Fate doesn’t like it when people take up more space than they ought to.’ (MP)
‘You know what the greatest tragedy in the whole world is?’ said Ginger, not paying him the least attention. ‘It’s all the people who never find out what they really want to do or what it is they’re really good at. It’s all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It’s all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become ploughmen instead. It’s all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when it’s even possible to find out.’
She took a deep breath. ‘It’s all the people who never get to know what it is they can really be. It’s all the wasted chances.’ (MP) An ancient proverb summed it up: when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it
ran, he is tired of life. (LF) 'What heroes like best is themselves.' (COM)
'I mean, Holy Wood is a different sort of place, isn’t it? People act differently here. Everywhere else, the most important things are gods or money or cattle. Here, the most important thing is to be important.' (MP)
'... sapience implies purpose.' (LW)
Sometimes if you wanted to go to the ball you had to be your own fairy godmother. (UA)
'... if you trust in yourself…’
‘Yes?’ ‘…and believe in your dreams…’ 'Yes?’ ‘…and follow your star…’ Miss Tick went on. 'Yes?’ ‘…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.' (WFM) People came to Ankh-Morpork to seek their fortune. Unfortunately, other people sought it too. (SM)
... you found that what you really wanted was power and there were much politer ways of getting it. And then you realized that power was a bauble. Any thug had power. The true prize was control. Lord Vetinari knew that. When heavy weights were balanced on the scales, the trick was to know where to place your thumb.
And all control started with the self. (FE) If Ruby had learned anything in Holy Wood, it was that there was no use in waiting around for Mr Right to hit you with a brick. You had to make your own bricks. (MP)
'You'd think one world would be big enough for all of us,' said Grimma.
'Oh, I don't know,' said Masklin. 'Maybe one world isn't big enough for anyone.' (Wings) ‘It doesn’t matter how you live and die, it’s how the bards wrote it down.' (LH)
'What can you be, after you’ve been yourself, as big as possible?' (MP)
You just get one chance, she said. You live for maybe seventy years, and if you’re lucky you get one chance.
Think of all the natural skiers who are born in deserts. Think of all the genius blacksmiths who were born hundreds of years before anyone invented the horse. All the skills that are never used. All the wasted chances. (MP) Not ambition for gold, or power, or land or all the things that were familiar parts of the human world.
Just ambition to be yourself, as big as possible. Not ambition for, but to be. (MP) 'Ah’, said Victor, trying to keep up with the psychology of this. ‘You decided you wanted to be someone?’
‘Don’t be silly. That’s when I decided I was going to be a lot more than just someone.' (MP) 'Make him a star? What’d he want a star for?’
‘I didn’t know you could make stars…I thought they were like, you know, stuck to the sky…’ ‘I think he meant make him a star. You know, him himself. Turn him into a star.’ ‘How can you make anyone into a star?’ ‘I dunno. I suppose you compress them right up small and they burst into this mass of flaming hydrogen?' (MP) |
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The world has lost Sir Terry, and it's so much the poorer for that. Vale Sir Terry. Categories
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