The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett
That’s the advantage of space. It’s big enough to hold practically anything, and so, eventually, it does. (LH)
People think that it is strange to have a turtle ten thousand miles long and an elephant more than two thousand miles tall, which just shows that the human brain is ill-adapted for thinking and was probably originally designed for cooling the blood. It believes mere size is amazing.
There’s nothing amazing about size. Turtles are amazing, and elephants are quite astonishing. But the fact that there’s a big turtle is far less amazing that the fact that there is a turtle anywhere. (LH)
‘Ah, well, life goes on,’ people say when someone dies. But from the point of view of the person who has just died, it doesn’t. It’s the universe that goes on. (LH)
The wizards, once they understood the urgency of a problem and then had lunch, and argued about the pudding, could actually work quite fast.
Their method of finding a solution, as far as the Patrician could see, was by way of creative hubbub. If the question was, ‘What is the best spell for turning a book of poetry into a frog?’, then the one thing they would not do was look in any book with a title like Major Amphibian Spells in a Literary Environment: A Comparison. That would, somehow, be cheating. They would argue about it instead, standing around a blackboard, seizing the chalk from one another and rubbing out bits of what the current chalk-holder was writing before he’d finished the other end of the sentence. Somehow, though, it all seemed to work. (LH)
‘Apparently, it’s all to do with the Uncertainty Principle.’
‘And that is...?’
‘I’m not sure.’ (LH)
Another response of the wizards, when faced with a new and unique situation, was to look through their libraries to see if it had ever happened before. This was, Lord Vetinari reflected, a good survival trait. It meant that in times of danger you spent the day sitting very quietly in a building with very thick walls. (LH)
Gods believe in belief. (LH)
Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch. XXI, v.16) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. This is somewhat less than 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essential services take up at least two thirds of this space, this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant – assuming that every creature that could be called ‘human’ is allowed in, and that the human race eventually totals a thousand times the number of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or - a happy thought – that pets are allowed. (LH)
‘The feeling stealing over me is that all these terms are defined by the hero. You could say: I am a hero, so when I kill you that makes you de facto, the kind of person suitable to be killed by a hero. You could say that a hero, in short, is someone who indulges every whim that, within the rule of law, would have him behind bars or swiftly dancing what I believe is known as the hemp fandango. The words we might use are: murder, pillage, theft and rape.’ (LH)
Most gods were people-shaped; people don’t have much imagination, on the whole. Even Offler the Crocodile God was only crocodile-headed. Ask people to imagine an animal god and they will, basically, come up with the idea of someone in a really bad mask. Men have been much better at inventing demons, which is why there are so many. (LH)
Their eyes said that wherever it was, they had been there. Whatever it was, they had done it, sometimes more than once. But they would never, ever, buy the T-shirt. And they did know the meaning of the word 'fear'. It was something that happened to other people. (LH)
Oh, I never stop to find out why people are chasing me, sir. I never look behind either. That'd be rather silly, sir.' (LH)
'Are you a friend of his?'
'Well, we've met a couple of times and he didn't kill me,' said Rincewind. 'That probably counts as a a "yes".' (LH)
'...the big thing about Cohen is ... he's contagious.'
'You mean like a plague carrier?'
'It's like a mental illness, sir. Or magic. He's as crazy as a stoat, but ... once they've been round him for a while, people start seeing the world the way he does. All big and simple. And they want to be part of it.' (LH)
The dungeons of the palace held a number of felons imprisoned ‘at his lordship’s pleasure’, and since Lord Vetinari was seldom very pleased they were generally in for the long haul. (LH)
'I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible.' (LH)
... men who can invent things anyone could have thought of are very rare men. (LH)
‘It’s very simple. I’m volunteering. I just don’t wish to. But, after all, when did that ever have anything to do with anything?’ (LH)
'I've been living my life for a long time. I know how it works.' (LH)
Too many people, when listing all the perils to be found in the search for lost treasure or ancient wisdom, had forgotten to put at the top of the list ‘the man who arrived just before you’. (LH)
It wasn't that the prospect of the end of the world was concentrating minds unduly, because that is a general and universal danger that people find hard to imagine. But the Patrician was being rather sharp with people, and that is a specific and highly personal danger and people had no problem relating to it at all. (LH)
'I don't think I've become old,' said Boy Willie. 'Not your actual old. Just more aware of where the next lavatory is.' (LH)
'He choked to death on a concubine.'
There was no sound but the hiss of snow in the fire and a number of people thinking fast.
'I think you mean cucumber,' said the bard.
'That's right, cucumber,' said Boy Willie. 'I've never been good at them long words.'
'Very important difference in a salad situation,' said Cohen. (LH)
‘I like a man I can’t trust. You know where you stand with an untrustworthy man. It’s the ones you ain’t never sure about who give you grief.’ (LH)
Born leaders didn't like being led. (LH)
Rincewind stared at the badge. He’d never had one before. Well, that was technically a lie ... he’d had one that said ‘Hello, I Am 5 Today!’, which was just about the worst possible present to get when you are six. (LH)
‘It will certainly be a challenge to go where no one has gone before,’ said Carrot.
‘Wrong! We’re going where no one has come back from before.’ (LH)
The Horde had it all. They had everything that money could buy, and since there was a lot of money on the Counterweight Continent, that was everything.
It occurred to him that when you’d had everything, all that was left was nothing. (LH)
‘Well, if you’re not going to expect unexpected flames, what’s the point of going anywhere?’ (LH)
‘I can read and write,’ said Evil Harry. ‘Sorry. Part of the job. Etiquette, too. You’ve got to be polite to people when you march them out on the plank over the shark tank... it makes it more evil.’ (LH)
Archchancellor Ridcully decided that the crew needed to be trained. Ponder Stibbons pointed out that they were going into the completely unexpected, and Ridcully ruled therefore that they should be given some unexpected training. (LH)
...Evil Lords were generally brighter than heroes. You needed some functioning brain cells to do the payroll even for half a dozen henchmen. (LH)
‘I was rather thinking of problems associated with the thin air and low gravity,’ said Leonard. ‘That’s what the survivor of the Maria Pesto reported. But this afternoon I feel I can come up with a privy that, happily, utilises the thinner air of altitude to achieve the effect normally associated with gravity. Gentle suction is involved.’
Ponder nodded. He had a quick mind when it came to mechanical detail, and he’d already formed a mental picture. Now a mental eraser would be useful. (LH)
‘I was just hoping that if I didn’t say anything you’d stop trying to explain things to me.’ (LH)
Lord Vetinari was not a man who delighted in the technical. There were two cultures, as far as he was concerned. One was real, the other was occupied by people who liked machinery and ate pizza at unreasonable hours. (LH)
'... barbarian heroes generally draw the line at blowing up the world.' He sighed. 'They're usually not civilised enough for that ...' (LH)
'If Cohen was easy to kill, people would have done it a long time ago.' (LH)
‘What is that on your badge, Captain Carrot?’
‘Mission motto, sir,’ said Carrot cheerfully. ‘Morituri Nolumus Mori. Rincewind suggested it.’
‘I imagine he did,’ said Lord Vetinari, observing the wizard coldly. ‘And would you care to give us a colloquial translation, Mr Rincewind?’
‘Er…’ Rincewind hesitated, but there really was no escape. ‘Er…roughly speaking, it means, “We who are about to die don’t want to”, sir.’ (LH)
‘I have absolute confidence in Mr da Quirm’s work, and I’m sure he has too.’
‘Oh, dear. No, I never bother to have any confidence,’ said Leonard.
‘You don’t?’
‘No, things just work. You don’t have to wish,’ said Leonard. ‘And, of course, if we do fail, then things won’t be that bad, will they? If we fail to come back, there won’t be anywhere left to fail to come back to in any case, will there? So it will all cancel out.’ He gave his happy little smile. ‘Logic is a great comfort in times like this, I always find.’ (LH)
As one man, they turned in their seats to look at the Experimental Privy Mk 2. Mk 1 had worked – Leonard’s devices tended to – but since the key to its operation was that it tumbled very fast on a central axis while in use it had been abandoned after a report by its test pilot (Rincewind) that, whatever you had in mind when you went in, the only thing you wanted to do once inside was get out.
Mk 2 was as yet untried. It creaked ominously under their gaze, an open invitation to constipation and kidney stones. (LH)
... creatures that ambushed the Horde did so at the end of their lives. (LH)
‘Some people say you achieve immortality through your children,’ said the minstrel.
‘Yeah?’ said Cohen. ‘Name one of your great-granddads, then.’ (LH)
‘It doesn’t matter how you live and die, it’s how the bards wrote it down.’ (LH)
'Thank you, Archchancellor, but I'm far too busy for you to help me,' he said. (LH)
On the Kite the situation was being ‘workshopped’. This is the means by which people who don’t know anything get together to pool their ignorance. (LH)
They landed. It's a short sentence, but contained a lot of incident. (LH)
‘A good wizard, Rincewind,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘Not particularly bright, but, frankly, I’ve never been quite happy with intelligence. An overrated talent, in my humble opinion.’ (LH)
‘How did you work that out so exactly, Mr Stibbons?’
‘I, er…’ Ponder felt the eyes of the wizards on him. ‘I-’ He stopped. ‘It was a lucky guess, sir.’
The wizards relaxed. They were extremely uneasy with cleverness, but lucky guessing was what being a wizard was all about.
‘Well done, that man,’ said Ridcully, nodding. ‘Wipe your forehead, Mr Stibbons, you’ve got away with it again.’ (LH)
... the problem with bandaging an orangutan's head is knowing when to stop. (LH)
'If they were very intelligent they would not be heroes.' (LH)
What goes around, comes around. If not examined too closely, it passes for justice. (LH)
‘And are you omnipotent?’
‘Aye, lass, but there’s pills I’m takin’ f’r it!’ (LH)
'... you know that religion that thinks that whirling around in circles is a form of prayer?'
'Oh, yes. The Hurtling Whirlers of Klatch.'
'Mine is like that, only we go more in ... straight lines. Yes. That's it. Speed is a sacrament.'
'You believe it gives you some sort of eternal life?'
'Not eternal, as such. More ... well, just more really. More life.' (LH)
'You're just a coward really, aren't you?'
'Yes, but I've never understood what's wrong with the idea. It takes guts to run away, you know. Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.' (LH)
‘Outstanding!’ said Carrot. ‘It’s just a walk in the park!’
‘You mean people are going to mug us and steal all our money and kick us viciously in the ribs?’ said Rincewind. (LH)
‘They say fortune favours the brave, but I say I’ve seen too many brave men walkin’ into battles they never walked out of.’ (LH)
‘I’ve got a sword and it’s a good one, but all the bleedin’ thing can do is keep someone alive, listen. A song can keep some immortal.’ (LH)
'We've always been ready to die,' said Caleb the Ripper.
'That's why we've lived such a long time,' said Boy Willie. (LH)
‘So much universe, and so little time.’ (LH)
There was, there always was, at the start and finish…the Code. They lived by the Code. You followed the Code, and you became part of the Code for those who followed you. The Code was it. Without the Code you weren’t a hero. You were just a thug in a loincloth. (LH)
One simple sword in the hands of a truly brave man would cut through a magical sword like suet. (LH)
Like many professionally religious people - and they were pretty professional, being gods - they tended towards unease in the presence of the unashamedly spiritual. (LH)
‘Tell me,’ said Blind Io. ‘Is there a god of policemen?’
‘No, sir,’ said Carrot. ‘Coppers would be far too suspicious of anyone calling themselves a god of policemen to believe in one.’ (LH)
'... when you look at the state of mankind you are forced to accept the reality of the gods.' (LH)
Gods have little use for irony. (LH)
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)
He’d never been keen on heroes. But he realized that he needed them to be there, like forests and mountains ... he might never see them, but they filled some sort of hole in his mind. Some sort of hole in everyone’s mind. (LH)
‘In the olden days,’ she said, ‘when a hero had been really heroic, the gods would put them up in the stars.’
THE HEAVENS CHANGE, said Death. WHAT TODAY LOOKS LIKE A MIGHTY HUNTER MAY LOOK LIKE A TEACUP IN A HUNDRED YEARS’ TIME.
‘That doesn’t seem fair.’
NO ONE EVER SAID IT HAD TO BE. BUT THERE ARE OTHER STARS. (LH)
‘We ought to get him home as soon as possible. What’s the usual direction? “Second star to the left and straight on ‘til morning”?’
‘I think that may very probably be the stupidest piece of astronavigation ever suggested,’ said Rincewind. (LH)
Memory can play tricks after the first ten thousand years ... (LH)
It is in the nature of things that those who save the world from certain destruction often don’t get hugely rewarded because, since the certain destruction does not take place, people are uncertain how certain it may have been and are, therefore, somewhat tight when it comes to handing out anything more substantial than praise. (LH)
No one remembers the singer. The song remains. (LH)
People think that it is strange to have a turtle ten thousand miles long and an elephant more than two thousand miles tall, which just shows that the human brain is ill-adapted for thinking and was probably originally designed for cooling the blood. It believes mere size is amazing.
There’s nothing amazing about size. Turtles are amazing, and elephants are quite astonishing. But the fact that there’s a big turtle is far less amazing that the fact that there is a turtle anywhere. (LH)
‘Ah, well, life goes on,’ people say when someone dies. But from the point of view of the person who has just died, it doesn’t. It’s the universe that goes on. (LH)
The wizards, once they understood the urgency of a problem and then had lunch, and argued about the pudding, could actually work quite fast.
Their method of finding a solution, as far as the Patrician could see, was by way of creative hubbub. If the question was, ‘What is the best spell for turning a book of poetry into a frog?’, then the one thing they would not do was look in any book with a title like Major Amphibian Spells in a Literary Environment: A Comparison. That would, somehow, be cheating. They would argue about it instead, standing around a blackboard, seizing the chalk from one another and rubbing out bits of what the current chalk-holder was writing before he’d finished the other end of the sentence. Somehow, though, it all seemed to work. (LH)
‘Apparently, it’s all to do with the Uncertainty Principle.’
‘And that is...?’
‘I’m not sure.’ (LH)
Another response of the wizards, when faced with a new and unique situation, was to look through their libraries to see if it had ever happened before. This was, Lord Vetinari reflected, a good survival trait. It meant that in times of danger you spent the day sitting very quietly in a building with very thick walls. (LH)
Gods believe in belief. (LH)
Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch. XXI, v.16) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. This is somewhat less than 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essential services take up at least two thirds of this space, this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant – assuming that every creature that could be called ‘human’ is allowed in, and that the human race eventually totals a thousand times the number of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or - a happy thought – that pets are allowed. (LH)
‘The feeling stealing over me is that all these terms are defined by the hero. You could say: I am a hero, so when I kill you that makes you de facto, the kind of person suitable to be killed by a hero. You could say that a hero, in short, is someone who indulges every whim that, within the rule of law, would have him behind bars or swiftly dancing what I believe is known as the hemp fandango. The words we might use are: murder, pillage, theft and rape.’ (LH)
Most gods were people-shaped; people don’t have much imagination, on the whole. Even Offler the Crocodile God was only crocodile-headed. Ask people to imagine an animal god and they will, basically, come up with the idea of someone in a really bad mask. Men have been much better at inventing demons, which is why there are so many. (LH)
Their eyes said that wherever it was, they had been there. Whatever it was, they had done it, sometimes more than once. But they would never, ever, buy the T-shirt. And they did know the meaning of the word 'fear'. It was something that happened to other people. (LH)
Oh, I never stop to find out why people are chasing me, sir. I never look behind either. That'd be rather silly, sir.' (LH)
'Are you a friend of his?'
'Well, we've met a couple of times and he didn't kill me,' said Rincewind. 'That probably counts as a a "yes".' (LH)
'...the big thing about Cohen is ... he's contagious.'
'You mean like a plague carrier?'
'It's like a mental illness, sir. Or magic. He's as crazy as a stoat, but ... once they've been round him for a while, people start seeing the world the way he does. All big and simple. And they want to be part of it.' (LH)
The dungeons of the palace held a number of felons imprisoned ‘at his lordship’s pleasure’, and since Lord Vetinari was seldom very pleased they were generally in for the long haul. (LH)
'I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible.' (LH)
... men who can invent things anyone could have thought of are very rare men. (LH)
‘It’s very simple. I’m volunteering. I just don’t wish to. But, after all, when did that ever have anything to do with anything?’ (LH)
'I've been living my life for a long time. I know how it works.' (LH)
Too many people, when listing all the perils to be found in the search for lost treasure or ancient wisdom, had forgotten to put at the top of the list ‘the man who arrived just before you’. (LH)
It wasn't that the prospect of the end of the world was concentrating minds unduly, because that is a general and universal danger that people find hard to imagine. But the Patrician was being rather sharp with people, and that is a specific and highly personal danger and people had no problem relating to it at all. (LH)
'I don't think I've become old,' said Boy Willie. 'Not your actual old. Just more aware of where the next lavatory is.' (LH)
'He choked to death on a concubine.'
There was no sound but the hiss of snow in the fire and a number of people thinking fast.
'I think you mean cucumber,' said the bard.
'That's right, cucumber,' said Boy Willie. 'I've never been good at them long words.'
'Very important difference in a salad situation,' said Cohen. (LH)
‘I like a man I can’t trust. You know where you stand with an untrustworthy man. It’s the ones you ain’t never sure about who give you grief.’ (LH)
Born leaders didn't like being led. (LH)
Rincewind stared at the badge. He’d never had one before. Well, that was technically a lie ... he’d had one that said ‘Hello, I Am 5 Today!’, which was just about the worst possible present to get when you are six. (LH)
‘It will certainly be a challenge to go where no one has gone before,’ said Carrot.
‘Wrong! We’re going where no one has come back from before.’ (LH)
The Horde had it all. They had everything that money could buy, and since there was a lot of money on the Counterweight Continent, that was everything.
It occurred to him that when you’d had everything, all that was left was nothing. (LH)
‘Well, if you’re not going to expect unexpected flames, what’s the point of going anywhere?’ (LH)
‘I can read and write,’ said Evil Harry. ‘Sorry. Part of the job. Etiquette, too. You’ve got to be polite to people when you march them out on the plank over the shark tank... it makes it more evil.’ (LH)
Archchancellor Ridcully decided that the crew needed to be trained. Ponder Stibbons pointed out that they were going into the completely unexpected, and Ridcully ruled therefore that they should be given some unexpected training. (LH)
...Evil Lords were generally brighter than heroes. You needed some functioning brain cells to do the payroll even for half a dozen henchmen. (LH)
‘I was rather thinking of problems associated with the thin air and low gravity,’ said Leonard. ‘That’s what the survivor of the Maria Pesto reported. But this afternoon I feel I can come up with a privy that, happily, utilises the thinner air of altitude to achieve the effect normally associated with gravity. Gentle suction is involved.’
Ponder nodded. He had a quick mind when it came to mechanical detail, and he’d already formed a mental picture. Now a mental eraser would be useful. (LH)
‘I was just hoping that if I didn’t say anything you’d stop trying to explain things to me.’ (LH)
Lord Vetinari was not a man who delighted in the technical. There were two cultures, as far as he was concerned. One was real, the other was occupied by people who liked machinery and ate pizza at unreasonable hours. (LH)
'... barbarian heroes generally draw the line at blowing up the world.' He sighed. 'They're usually not civilised enough for that ...' (LH)
'If Cohen was easy to kill, people would have done it a long time ago.' (LH)
‘What is that on your badge, Captain Carrot?’
‘Mission motto, sir,’ said Carrot cheerfully. ‘Morituri Nolumus Mori. Rincewind suggested it.’
‘I imagine he did,’ said Lord Vetinari, observing the wizard coldly. ‘And would you care to give us a colloquial translation, Mr Rincewind?’
‘Er…’ Rincewind hesitated, but there really was no escape. ‘Er…roughly speaking, it means, “We who are about to die don’t want to”, sir.’ (LH)
‘I have absolute confidence in Mr da Quirm’s work, and I’m sure he has too.’
‘Oh, dear. No, I never bother to have any confidence,’ said Leonard.
‘You don’t?’
‘No, things just work. You don’t have to wish,’ said Leonard. ‘And, of course, if we do fail, then things won’t be that bad, will they? If we fail to come back, there won’t be anywhere left to fail to come back to in any case, will there? So it will all cancel out.’ He gave his happy little smile. ‘Logic is a great comfort in times like this, I always find.’ (LH)
As one man, they turned in their seats to look at the Experimental Privy Mk 2. Mk 1 had worked – Leonard’s devices tended to – but since the key to its operation was that it tumbled very fast on a central axis while in use it had been abandoned after a report by its test pilot (Rincewind) that, whatever you had in mind when you went in, the only thing you wanted to do once inside was get out.
Mk 2 was as yet untried. It creaked ominously under their gaze, an open invitation to constipation and kidney stones. (LH)
... creatures that ambushed the Horde did so at the end of their lives. (LH)
‘Some people say you achieve immortality through your children,’ said the minstrel.
‘Yeah?’ said Cohen. ‘Name one of your great-granddads, then.’ (LH)
‘It doesn’t matter how you live and die, it’s how the bards wrote it down.’ (LH)
'Thank you, Archchancellor, but I'm far too busy for you to help me,' he said. (LH)
On the Kite the situation was being ‘workshopped’. This is the means by which people who don’t know anything get together to pool their ignorance. (LH)
They landed. It's a short sentence, but contained a lot of incident. (LH)
‘A good wizard, Rincewind,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘Not particularly bright, but, frankly, I’ve never been quite happy with intelligence. An overrated talent, in my humble opinion.’ (LH)
‘How did you work that out so exactly, Mr Stibbons?’
‘I, er…’ Ponder felt the eyes of the wizards on him. ‘I-’ He stopped. ‘It was a lucky guess, sir.’
The wizards relaxed. They were extremely uneasy with cleverness, but lucky guessing was what being a wizard was all about.
‘Well done, that man,’ said Ridcully, nodding. ‘Wipe your forehead, Mr Stibbons, you’ve got away with it again.’ (LH)
... the problem with bandaging an orangutan's head is knowing when to stop. (LH)
'If they were very intelligent they would not be heroes.' (LH)
What goes around, comes around. If not examined too closely, it passes for justice. (LH)
‘And are you omnipotent?’
‘Aye, lass, but there’s pills I’m takin’ f’r it!’ (LH)
'... you know that religion that thinks that whirling around in circles is a form of prayer?'
'Oh, yes. The Hurtling Whirlers of Klatch.'
'Mine is like that, only we go more in ... straight lines. Yes. That's it. Speed is a sacrament.'
'You believe it gives you some sort of eternal life?'
'Not eternal, as such. More ... well, just more really. More life.' (LH)
'You're just a coward really, aren't you?'
'Yes, but I've never understood what's wrong with the idea. It takes guts to run away, you know. Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.' (LH)
‘Outstanding!’ said Carrot. ‘It’s just a walk in the park!’
‘You mean people are going to mug us and steal all our money and kick us viciously in the ribs?’ said Rincewind. (LH)
‘They say fortune favours the brave, but I say I’ve seen too many brave men walkin’ into battles they never walked out of.’ (LH)
‘I’ve got a sword and it’s a good one, but all the bleedin’ thing can do is keep someone alive, listen. A song can keep some immortal.’ (LH)
'We've always been ready to die,' said Caleb the Ripper.
'That's why we've lived such a long time,' said Boy Willie. (LH)
‘So much universe, and so little time.’ (LH)
There was, there always was, at the start and finish…the Code. They lived by the Code. You followed the Code, and you became part of the Code for those who followed you. The Code was it. Without the Code you weren’t a hero. You were just a thug in a loincloth. (LH)
One simple sword in the hands of a truly brave man would cut through a magical sword like suet. (LH)
Like many professionally religious people - and they were pretty professional, being gods - they tended towards unease in the presence of the unashamedly spiritual. (LH)
‘Tell me,’ said Blind Io. ‘Is there a god of policemen?’
‘No, sir,’ said Carrot. ‘Coppers would be far too suspicious of anyone calling themselves a god of policemen to believe in one.’ (LH)
'... when you look at the state of mankind you are forced to accept the reality of the gods.' (LH)
Gods have little use for irony. (LH)
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)
He’d never been keen on heroes. But he realized that he needed them to be there, like forests and mountains ... he might never see them, but they filled some sort of hole in his mind. Some sort of hole in everyone’s mind. (LH)
‘In the olden days,’ she said, ‘when a hero had been really heroic, the gods would put them up in the stars.’
THE HEAVENS CHANGE, said Death. WHAT TODAY LOOKS LIKE A MIGHTY HUNTER MAY LOOK LIKE A TEACUP IN A HUNDRED YEARS’ TIME.
‘That doesn’t seem fair.’
NO ONE EVER SAID IT HAD TO BE. BUT THERE ARE OTHER STARS. (LH)
‘We ought to get him home as soon as possible. What’s the usual direction? “Second star to the left and straight on ‘til morning”?’
‘I think that may very probably be the stupidest piece of astronavigation ever suggested,’ said Rincewind. (LH)
Memory can play tricks after the first ten thousand years ... (LH)
It is in the nature of things that those who save the world from certain destruction often don’t get hugely rewarded because, since the certain destruction does not take place, people are uncertain how certain it may have been and are, therefore, somewhat tight when it comes to handing out anything more substantial than praise. (LH)
No one remembers the singer. The song remains. (LH)