He envied his fellow students who believed in gods that were intangible and lived a long way away on top of some mountain. A fellow could really believe in gods like that. But it was extremely hard to believe in a god when you saw him at breakfast every day. (P)
0 Comments
The Demon God Yoth-Ziggurat might want to chop your soul up into little pieces, but at least he doesn’t tell you that you haven’t got one. (JD)
The trouble with gods was that if they didn’t like something they didn’t just drop hints … (S)
It is embarrassing to know that one is a god of a world that only exists because every probability curve must have a far end ... (COM)
‘… if complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet armour and shouting “All gods are bastards’. (COM)
Only a mile away from the shepherd and his flock was a goatherd and his herd. The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different.
For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led. (SG) 'Tak does not require that you think of him, but he does require that you think ...' (RS)
‘… some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they’re doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.’ (Sn)
Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen. (UA)
… if there were two things the city liked, it was tradition and goddesses, especially if the goddesses were a bit short on chiffon above the waist. (UA)
She was, of course, beautiful. You seldom saw a goddess portrayed as ugly. This probably had something to do with their ability to strike people down instantly. (UA)
That's what gods are! An answer that will do! (N)
The universe doesn’t much care if you tread on a butterfly. There are plenty more butterflies. Gods might note the fall of a sparrow but they don’t make an effort to catch them.
Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland? In fifty years’, thirty years’, ten years’time the world will be very nearly back on its old course. History always has a great weight of inertia. (LL) The repairing of the Kite was simple enough. Although gods, on the whole, do not feel at home around mechanical things, every pantheon everywhere in the universe finds its necessary to have some minor deity – Vulcan, Wayland, Dennis, Hephaistos –who knows how bits fit together and that sort of thing.
Most large organisations, to their regret and expense, have to have someone like that. (LH) A favourite trick of Ephebian gods, he recalled, was turning into some animal in order to gain the favours of highly-placed Ephebian women. And one of them had reputedly turned himself into a golden shower in pursuit of his intended. All this raised interesting questions about everyday nightlife in sophisticated Ephebe. (P)
'The old king told me once that the gods gave people a sense of humour to make up for giving them sex. I think he was a bit upset at the time.' (P)
'I was embarrassed. It’s always embarrassing, meeting deities,’ said Gurder. (Wings)
She had the slightly wistful, slightly hungry look that so many women of a certain age wore when they’d decided to trust in gods because of the absolute impossibility of continuing to trust in men. (MM)
Building a temple didn’t mean you believed in gods, it just meant you believed in architecture. (MM)
'We are a small people,’ her father had said. ‘It ain’t wise to come to the attention of the gods.' (W)
... the tradition of burying a shepherd with a piece of raw wool in the coffin was true, too. Even gods understand that a shepherd can’t neglect the sheep. A god who didn’t understand would not be worth believing in. (WFM)
'There have to be rules, Mistress Weatherwax.’
‘And what’s the first one that your Om requires, then?’ ‘That believers should worship no other god but Om,’ said Oats promptly. ‘Oh yes? That’s gods for you. Very self-centred, as a rule.' (CJ) Other theories about the ultimate start involve gods creating the universe out of the ribs, entrails and testicles of their father.* There are quite a lot of these. They are interesting, not for what they tell you about cosmology, but for what they say about people.
*Gods like a joke as much as anyone else. (LL) 'We get the gods we deserve,’ said Brutha, ‘and I think we don’t deserve any.' (SG)
'You can die for your country or your people or your family, but for a god you should live fully and busily, every day of a long life.' (SG)
|
Author
The world has lost Sir Terry, and it's so much the poorer for that. Vale Sir Terry. Categories
All
Archives
March 2023
|