‘Why me?’
Why not? (OYCSM)
Why not? (OYCSM)
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'He's a policeman. The truth usually confuses them. They don't often hear it.' (TT)
Mobs become uncertain very quickly, in view of the absence of a central brain ... (CJ)
He didn't gird his loins, because he wasn't certain how you did that and had never dared ask ... (CJ)
'We don't need a machine for being confused. We're entirely capable of confusin' ourselves. It is a human achievement, confusion ....' (SD)
… Magrat had never been any good at acting. She’d always felt she wasn’t very good at being Magrat, if it came to that. (LL)
Demons were like genies and philosophy professors – if you didn’t word things exactly right, they delighted in giving you absolutely accurate and completely misleading answers. (WS)
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said.
‘No harm in that. I’ve never known what to do,’ said Rincewind with hollow cheerfulness. ‘Been completely at a loss my whole life.’ He hesitated. ‘I think it’s called being human …’ (S) There is something vaguely worrying about the word 'reckon' that leaves the ear, for many hard to understand reasons, wishing it was something else a little more certain and a little less frightening. (RS)
His job was to make sense of the world, and there were times when he wished that the world would meet him halfway. (Sn)
'Religion is not an exact science. Sometimes, of course, neither is science.' (N)
'The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,’ said Lu-Tze. (TOT)
'... nothing is certain, even if you know it is.' (TG)
I’m going to die?’
POSSIBLY. ‘Possibly? You turn up when people are possibly going to die?’ OH, YES. IT’S QUITE THE NEW THING. IT’S BECAUSE OF THE UNCERTAINTY PRINICIPLE. 'What’s that?’ I’M NOT SURE. ‘That’s very helpful.’ I THINK IT MEANS PEOPLE MAY OR MAY NOT DIE. I HAVE TO SAY IT’S PLAYING HOB WITH MY SCHEDULE, BUT I TRY TO KEEP UP WITH MODERN THOUGHT. (FE) 'When in doubt, choose to live.' (TOT)
IT IS A MADE-UP STORY. VERY STRANGE. ALL ONE NEEDS DO IS TURN TO THE LAST PAGE AND THE ANSWER IS THERE. WHAT, THEREFORE, IS THE POINT OF DELIBERATEDLY NOT KNOWING? (Th)
A man might spend his life peering at the private life of elementary particles and then find he either knew who he was, or where he was, but not both. (H)
... the seeker after truth had found truths instead. The Third Journey of the Prophet Cena, for example, seemed remarkably like a retranslation of the Testament of Sand in the Laotan Book of the Whole. On one shelf alone he found forty-three remarkably similar accounts of a great flood, and in every single one of them a man very much like Bishop Horn had saved the elect of mankind by building a magical boat. Details varied of course. Sometimes the boat was made of wood, sometimes of banana leaves. Sometimes the news of the emerging dry land was brought by a swan,
sometimes by an iguana. Of course these stories in the chronicles of other religions were mere folktales and myth, while the voyage detailed in the Book of Cena was holy truth. But nevertheless. (CJ) 'Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.' (SG)
A man might be uncertain about how many wives he had, but never about elephants. (MP)
When people say clearly something, that means there’s a huge crack in their argument and they know things aren’t clear at all. (TT)
Colon didn’t reply. I wish Captain Vimes were here, he thought. He wouldn’t have known what to do either, but he’s got a much better vocabulary to be baffled in. (GG)
'Before I heard him talk, I was like everyone else. You know what I mean? I was confused and uncertain about all the little details of life. But now,’ he brightened up, ‘while I’m still confused and uncertain it’s on a much higher plane, d’you see, and at least I know I’m bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe.’
Treacle nodded. ‘I hadn’t looked at it like that,’ he said, ‘but you’re absolutely right. He’s really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance. There’s so much about the universe we don’t know’. They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were ignorant of only ordinary things. (ER) 'I don't think humans want to know things that disturb them.' (Wings)
'What did you say?’
‘I said it’s uncertain death.’ ‘Is that worse than certain death.’ ‘Much.' (TOT) |
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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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