…the real purpose of a coven was to meet friends, even if they were friends simply because they were really the only people you could talk to freely as they had the same problems and would understand what you were moaning about. (W)
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Goodbye,’Mort said, and was surprised to find a lump in his throat. ‘It’s such an unpleasant word, isn’t it?’
QUITE SO. Death grinned because, as has so often been remarked, he didn’t have much option. But possibly he meant it, this time. I PREFER AU REVOIR, he said. (M) ... the funny thing was that people who weren't entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince was themselves. (Dig)
... she was easy to confide in because she never bothered to listen. She used the time to think about what to say next. (MM)
Hubert grasped the lapels of his jacket, as if addressing a meeting, and swelled with the urge to communicate, or at least talk at length in the belief that it was the same thing. (MM)
'Nevertheless.’
Tiffany waited, and then said: ‘Nevertheless what?’ ‘Just general neverthelessness.' (W) The wizards were entering the special fugue state known as the Hubbub, where no-one was going to be allowed to finish a sentence because someone else would drown them out. It was how the wizards decided things. (TG)
Most wizards would die rather than take exercise, and did, but Ridcully had the rude health of a bear and only marginally better interpersonal skills. Despite his quite considerable if erratic erudition, at heart he was a man who’d rather smack someone around the ear than develop a complicated argument. (TG)
He had the slightly hunted expression of anyone who’d been talked to by Maurice for any length of time. It said ‘I’m going where I don’t want to go, but I don’t know how to get off’. (AM)
Wizards seldom bothered to look things up if they could reach an answer by bickering at cross-purposes. (SODW)
'Perhaps you would care to say a few words, sir?’ said Ponder.
‘Yes.’ Ridcully looked thoughtful for a moment, and then brightened up. ‘Let’s get this over quickly, and have lunch.' (SODW) Talking to the senior wizards was like building a house of cards; if you got anything to stay upright, you just breathed out gently and moved on. (SODW)
People in drought-stricken areas would have paid good money to have Igor pronounce ‘sausages’. (FE)
Lord Vetinari paused. He found it difficult to talk to Frederick Colon. He dealt on a daily basis with people who treated conversation as a complex game, and with Colon he had to keep on adjusting his mind in case he overshot. (FE)
'No one can be quiet like Esme. You can hardly hear yourself think for the silence.' (CJ)
The only sensible way to hold a conversation with Igor was when you had an umbrella. (CJ)
Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen in a cutting a way. She could make something sound stupid just by hearing it. (SLF)
Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors or windows – sometimes it doesn’t even need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips. (FC)
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)
Ridcully never wasted time on small talk. It was always large talk or nothing. (LL)
Consider orang-utans.
In all the worlds graced by their presence, it is suspected that they can talk but choose not do so in case humans put them to work, possibly in the television industry. In fact they can talk. It’s just that they talk in Orang-utan. Humans are only capable of listening in Bewilderment. (MA) There was never anything to be gained from observing what humans said to one another - language was just there to hide their thoughts. (RM)
'Look, how about this? Let’s pretend we’ve had the row and I’ve won. See? It saves a lot of effort.' (M)
Sheep are not known for their conversation. (WFM)
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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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