'There’s no harm in the occasional cackle…' (WFM)
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'Witches have animals they can talk to, called familiars. Like your toad there.’
‘I’m not familiar,’ said a voice among the paper flowers. ‘I’m just slightly presumptuous.' (WFM) Sean knew his witches. It was best to give in right at the start. (TG)
'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) the magic of wizards, the magic of witches did not usually involve the application of much raw power. The difference is between hammers and levers. Witches generally tried to find the small point where a little changes made a lot of result. To make an avalanche you can either shake the mountain, or maybe you can just find exactly the right place to drop a snowflake. (SLF)
Granny Weatherwax was not an advertisement for witchcraft. Oh, she was one of the best at it, no doubt about that. At a certain kind, certainly. But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself, is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end of it was hard work and self-denial. (SLF)
She was a witch, after all. Scratch any witch and…well, you’d be facing a witch you’d just scratched. (SLF)
People are always giving things to witches. It’s very nice of them. It’s possible that they think it is lucky to do so, but it’s probable that they know it’s unlucky not to. (PP)
You needed at least three witches for a coven. Two witches was just an argument. (Ma)
'Witches! Let me tell you about the witches round here-’
‘Our mum’s a witch,’ said Shawn conversationally, rummaging in the sack. ‘As fine a body of women as you could hope to meet,’said Ridcully, with barely a hint of mental gear-clashing. ‘And not a bunch of interfering power-mad old crones at all, whatever anyone might say.' (LL) 'But they’re witches. I don’t like to ask them questions.’
‘Why not?’ ‘They might give me answers. And then what would I do?' (LL) Granny Weatherwax did not believe in atmospheres. She did not believe in psychic auras. Being a witch, she’d always thought, depended more on what you didn’t believe. (WA)
Artists and writers have always had a rather exaggerated idea about what goes on at a witches’ sabbat. This comes from spending too much time in small rooms with the curtains drawn, instead of getting out in the healthy fresh air. (WA)
There are thousands of good reasons why magic doesn’t rule the world. They’re called witches and wizards, Magrat reflected ... (WS)
... witches, like beekeepers and big gorillas, went where they liked. (WS)
Like most people, witches are unfocused in time. The difference is that they dimly realise it, and make use of it. They cherish the past because part of them is still living there, and they can see the shadows the future casts before it. (WS)
Unlike wizards, who like nothing better than a complicated hierarchy, witches don’t go in much for the structured approach to career progression. It’s up to each individual witch to take on a girl to hand the area over to when she dies. Witches are not by nature gregarious, at least with other witches, and they certainly don’t have leaders.
Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn’t have. (WS) On nights such as this, witches are abroad.
Well, not actually abroad. They don’t like the food and you can’t trust the water and the shamans always hog the deckchairs. (WS) The night was as black as the inside of a cat. It was the kind of night, you could believe, on which the gods moved men as though they were pawns on the chessboard of fate. In the middle of the elemental storm a fire gleamed among the dripping furze bushes like the madness in a weasel’s eye. It illuminated three hunched figures. As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: ‘When shall we three meet again?’
There was a pause. Finally another voice said in far more ordinary tones: ‘Well I can do next Tuesday.' (WS) Granny suffered from robustly healthy teeth, which she considered a big drawback in a witch. She really envied Nanny Annaple, the witch over the mountain, who managed to lose all her teeth by the time she was twenty and had real crone-credibility. It meant you ate a lot of soup, but you also get a lot of respect. (ER)
A witch relied too much on words ever to go back on them. (ER)
In the Ramtops witches were accorded a status similar to that which other cultures gave to nuns, or tax collectors, or cesspit cleaners. That is to say, they were respected, sometimes admired, generally applauded for doing a job which logically had to be done, but people never felt quite comfortable in the same room with them. (ER)
... no one had a bad word to say about witches. At least, not if he wanted to wake up in the morning the same shape as he went to bed. (ER)
Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft. (HFS)
Bits of Miss Tick’s teachings floated through her head: Always face what you fear. Have enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it’s not your fault it’s your responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two mirrors. Never cackle. Do what you must do. Never lie, but you don’t always have to be honest. Never wish. Especially don’t wish upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open you eyes, and then open your eyes again. (HFS)
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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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