Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
Some things start before other things. (WFM)
‘You need good hard rock to grow a witch…’ (WFM)
People say things like ‘listen to your heart’, but witches learn to listen with other things too. It’s amazing what your kidneys can tell you. (WFM)
Ordinary fortune-tellers tell you what you want to happen; witches tell you what’s going to happen whether you want it to or not. Strangely enough, witches tend to be more accurate but less popular. (WFM)
Tiffany Aching was lying on her stomach by the river tickling trout. She liked to hear them laugh. It came up in bubbles. (WFM)
Susurrus…according to her grandmother’s dictionary, it meant ‘a low soft sound, as of whispering or muttering’. Tiffany liked the taste of the word. It made her think of mysterious people in long cloaks whispering important secrets behind a door…susurrususssurrusss… (WFM)
They didn’t have to be funny, they were father jokes. (WFM)
Witches don't like to be seen running. It looks unprofessional. (WFM)
They looked like tinkers, but there wasn’t one amongst them, she knew, who could mend a kettle. What they did was sell invisible things. And after they had sold what they had, they still had it. They sold what everyone needed but didn’t often want. They sold the key to the universe to people who didn’t know it was locked.
‘I can’t do,’ said Miss Tick, straightening up. ‘But I can teach!’ (WFM)
They went from village to village delivering short lessons on many subjects. They kept apart from the other travellers, and were quite mysterious in their ragged robes and strange square hats. They used long words like ‘corrugated iron’. They lived rough lives, surviving on what food they could earn from giving lessons to anyone who would listen. When no one would listen, they lived on baked hedgehog. They went to sleep under the stars, which the maths teachers would count, the astronomy teachers would measure and the literature teachers would name. The geography teachers got lost in the woods and fell into bear traps. (WFM)
If you didn't find some way of stopping it, people would go on asking questions. (WFM)
‘I would like a question answered today,’ said Tiffany.
‘Provided it’s not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs,’ said the man.
‘No,’ said Tiffany patiently. ‘It’s about zoology.’
‘Zoology, eh? That’s a big word, isn’t it.’
‘No, actually it isn’t,’ said Tiffany. ‘Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.’ (WFM)
'I can see we're going to get along like a house on fire,' said Miss Tick. 'There may be no survivors.' (WFM)
And did the book have any adventures for people who had brown eyes and brown hair? No, no, no ... it was the blond people with blue eyes and the redheads with green eyes which got the stories. If you had brown hair you were probably just a servant or a woodcutter or something. Or a dairymaid. (WFM)
‘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)
And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done. (WFM)
‘Anyone with half a mind could see that.’
Miss Tick sighed. ‘Yes. But sometimes it’s so hard to find half a mind when you need one.’ (WFM)
‘A unicorn is nothing more than a big horse that comes to a point…’ (WFM)
…if you trust in yourself…’
‘Yes?’
‘…and believe in your dreams…’
‘Yes?’
‘…and follow your star…’ Miss Tick went on.
‘Yes?’
‘…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.’ (WFM)
‘I am a teacher as well as a witch,’ said Miss Tick, adjusting her hat carefully. ‘Therefore I make lists. I make assessments. I write things down in a neat, firm hand with pens of two colours.’ (WFM)
…there’s nothing funnier than a heron trying to get airborne in a hurry. (WFM)
There was a lot of mist around, but a few stars were visible overheard and there was a gibbous moon in the sky. Tiffany knew it was gibbous because she’d read in the Almanack that ‘gibbous’ meant what the moon looked like when it was just a bit fatter than half full, and so she made a point of paying attention to it around those times just so that she could say to herself: ‘Ah, I see the moon’s very gibbous tonight…’ (WFM)
… some girl who can’t tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either be as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family. (WFM)
... a witch always listens to other people's conversations. (WFM)
Sheep are not known for their conversation. (WFM)
Tiffany was on the whole quite a truthful person, but it seemed to her that there were times when things didn’t divide easily into ‘true’ and ‘false’, but instead could be ‘things that people needed to know at the moment’ and ‘things that they didn’t need to know at the moment’. (WFM)
Nothing’s louder than the end of a song that’s always been there. (WFM)
‘Never cross a woman with a star on a stick, young lady. They’ve got a mean streak.’ (WFM)
That’s the trouble with a brain: it thinks more than you sometimes want it too. (WFM)
…you can’t love people all the time when they have a permanently runny nose. (WFM)
Few things are hidden from a quiet child with good eyesight. (WFM)
'They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.' (WFM)
You couldn't bribe Granny Aching for all the gold in the world, but you could definitely attract get attention with an ounce of Jolly Sailor. (WFM)
And it didn't stop being magic just because you found out how it was done ... (WFM)
You couldn't tell someone with half his face dyed dark blue and a sword as big as he was that you weren't really a witch. You couldn't disappoint someone like that. (WFM)
‘Ye can just rush in. We always just rush in.’
‘Aye, Big Yan, point well made. But ye gotta know where ye’re just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in anywhere. It looks bad, havin’ to rush oout again straight awa’.’ (WFM)
‘Whut’s the plan, Rob?’ said one of them.
‘OK, lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?’
This caused a cheer.
‘Ach, ‘tis a good plan,’ said Daft Wullie. (WFM)
‘…on my honour.’
‘On your honour as a drunken rowdy thief?’ said Tiffany.
Rob Anybody beamed. ‘Aye!’ he said. ‘An’ I got a lot of good big reputation to protect there!’ (WFM)
… she thought there should be a word meaning ‘a word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn’t, but would if it ‘did’.
Glint, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it’d go ‘glint!’ And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like ‘glitterglitter’. ‘Gleam’ was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that intended to shine all day. And ‘glisten’ was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily. (WFM)
... it's the job of grandmothers to be happy when grandchildren give them things. (WFM)
'First sight is when you can see what's really there, not what you heid tells you ought to be there. Ye saw Jenny, Ye saw the horseman, Ye saw them as real thingies second sight is dull sight, it's seeing only what you expect to see.' (WFM)
It was very unusual for Granny Aching to say more than a sentence. She used words as if they cost money. (WFM)
‘An’ they willnae let me play doon there on account o’ them sayin’ my playin’ sounds like a spider tryin’ to fart through its ears…’ (WFM)
‘What’s your name, pictsie?’ she said.
‘No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, mistress. There’s no’ that many Feegle names, ye ken, so we ha’ to share.’ (WFM)
No words could describe what a Feegle in a kilt looks like upside down, so they won't try. (WFM)
‘How can a man six inches high train a bird like that?’ she asked as the buzzard circled again for height.
‘Ach, all it takes is a wee drop o’ kindness, mistress,’ said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.
‘Really?’
‘Aye, an’ a big dollop o’ cruelty…’ (WFM)
The period of time it takes a pictsie to go from normal to mad fighting mood is so tiny it can't be measured on the smallest clock. (WFM)
The Nac Mac Feegle would fight and steal, certainly, but who wanted to fight the weak and steal from the poor? (WFM)
You could read the Nac Mac Feegle like a book. And it would be a big, simple book with pictures of Spot the Dog and a Big Red Ball and one or two sentences on each page. (WFM)
‘There can only be one t’ousand!’ (WFM)
It’s amazing what a child who is quiet and observant can learn, and this includes things people don’t think she is old enough to know. (WFM)
‘What’s magic, eh? Just wavin’ a stick an’ sayin’ a few wee magical words. An’ what’s so clever aboot that, eh? But lookin’ at things, really lookin’ at ‘em, and then workin’ ‘em oout, now, that’s a real skill.’ (WFM)
‘Them as can do, has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.’ (WFM)
'Fear' was only one of thousands of words the pictsies probably didn't know the meaning of. (WFM)
People who say things like 'may all your dreams come true' should try living in one for five minutes. (WFM)
As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got dirty and sulked. Any seen dancing and skipping and singing had probably been stung by a wasp. (WFM)
‘…it was better to belong where you don’t belong than not belong where you used to belong, remembering when you used to belong there…’ (WFM)
'There's nothing we cannae get in or oot of.'
'Except maybe pubs,' said Big Yan.
'Oh, aye,' said Rob Anybody cheerfully. 'Gettin' oot o' pubs sometimes causes us a cerrrtain amount o' difficulty, I'll grant ye that.' (WFM)
'Is this the wee bairn? Ach, what a noseful o' bogeys!' (WFM)
Rob Anybody looked offended. ‘We ne’er get lost!’ he said. ‘We always ken where we are! It’s just sometimes mebbe we aren’t sure where everything else is, but it’s no’ our fault if everything else gets lost! The Nac Mac Feegle are never lost!’ (WFM)
Being right doesn’t always work. (WFM)
‘The secret is not to dream,’ she whispered, ‘The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I’m going.’ (WFM)
No wonder we dream our way through lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really was…no one could stand that for long. (WFM)
‘We look to…the edges,’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘There’s a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong…an’ they need watchin’. We watch ‘em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That’s important.’ (WFM)
'There's ways and ways of not askin', if you get my meaning. People like to see a happy witch.' (WFM)
‘There’s no harm in the occasional cackle…’ (WFM)
‘The thing about witchcraft,’ said Mistress Weatherwax, ‘is that it’s not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin’ out how you passed it. It’s a bit like life in that respect.’ (WFM)
‘…I always say the occasional tremble does you good.’ (WFM)
…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 is no such word as 'moonlight' but it would be nice if there was. (WFM)
‘You need good hard rock to grow a witch…’ (WFM)
People say things like ‘listen to your heart’, but witches learn to listen with other things too. It’s amazing what your kidneys can tell you. (WFM)
Ordinary fortune-tellers tell you what you want to happen; witches tell you what’s going to happen whether you want it to or not. Strangely enough, witches tend to be more accurate but less popular. (WFM)
Tiffany Aching was lying on her stomach by the river tickling trout. She liked to hear them laugh. It came up in bubbles. (WFM)
Susurrus…according to her grandmother’s dictionary, it meant ‘a low soft sound, as of whispering or muttering’. Tiffany liked the taste of the word. It made her think of mysterious people in long cloaks whispering important secrets behind a door…susurrususssurrusss… (WFM)
They didn’t have to be funny, they were father jokes. (WFM)
Witches don't like to be seen running. It looks unprofessional. (WFM)
They looked like tinkers, but there wasn’t one amongst them, she knew, who could mend a kettle. What they did was sell invisible things. And after they had sold what they had, they still had it. They sold what everyone needed but didn’t often want. They sold the key to the universe to people who didn’t know it was locked.
‘I can’t do,’ said Miss Tick, straightening up. ‘But I can teach!’ (WFM)
They went from village to village delivering short lessons on many subjects. They kept apart from the other travellers, and were quite mysterious in their ragged robes and strange square hats. They used long words like ‘corrugated iron’. They lived rough lives, surviving on what food they could earn from giving lessons to anyone who would listen. When no one would listen, they lived on baked hedgehog. They went to sleep under the stars, which the maths teachers would count, the astronomy teachers would measure and the literature teachers would name. The geography teachers got lost in the woods and fell into bear traps. (WFM)
If you didn't find some way of stopping it, people would go on asking questions. (WFM)
‘I would like a question answered today,’ said Tiffany.
‘Provided it’s not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs,’ said the man.
‘No,’ said Tiffany patiently. ‘It’s about zoology.’
‘Zoology, eh? That’s a big word, isn’t it.’
‘No, actually it isn’t,’ said Tiffany. ‘Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.’ (WFM)
'I can see we're going to get along like a house on fire,' said Miss Tick. 'There may be no survivors.' (WFM)
And did the book have any adventures for people who had brown eyes and brown hair? No, no, no ... it was the blond people with blue eyes and the redheads with green eyes which got the stories. If you had brown hair you were probably just a servant or a woodcutter or something. Or a dairymaid. (WFM)
‘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)
And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done. (WFM)
‘Anyone with half a mind could see that.’
Miss Tick sighed. ‘Yes. But sometimes it’s so hard to find half a mind when you need one.’ (WFM)
‘A unicorn is nothing more than a big horse that comes to a point…’ (WFM)
…if you trust in yourself…’
‘Yes?’
‘…and believe in your dreams…’
‘Yes?’
‘…and follow your star…’ Miss Tick went on.
‘Yes?’
‘…you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.’ (WFM)
‘I am a teacher as well as a witch,’ said Miss Tick, adjusting her hat carefully. ‘Therefore I make lists. I make assessments. I write things down in a neat, firm hand with pens of two colours.’ (WFM)
…there’s nothing funnier than a heron trying to get airborne in a hurry. (WFM)
There was a lot of mist around, but a few stars were visible overheard and there was a gibbous moon in the sky. Tiffany knew it was gibbous because she’d read in the Almanack that ‘gibbous’ meant what the moon looked like when it was just a bit fatter than half full, and so she made a point of paying attention to it around those times just so that she could say to herself: ‘Ah, I see the moon’s very gibbous tonight…’ (WFM)
… some girl who can’t tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either be as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family. (WFM)
... a witch always listens to other people's conversations. (WFM)
Sheep are not known for their conversation. (WFM)
Tiffany was on the whole quite a truthful person, but it seemed to her that there were times when things didn’t divide easily into ‘true’ and ‘false’, but instead could be ‘things that people needed to know at the moment’ and ‘things that they didn’t need to know at the moment’. (WFM)
Nothing’s louder than the end of a song that’s always been there. (WFM)
‘Never cross a woman with a star on a stick, young lady. They’ve got a mean streak.’ (WFM)
That’s the trouble with a brain: it thinks more than you sometimes want it too. (WFM)
…you can’t love people all the time when they have a permanently runny nose. (WFM)
Few things are hidden from a quiet child with good eyesight. (WFM)
'They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.' (WFM)
You couldn't bribe Granny Aching for all the gold in the world, but you could definitely attract get attention with an ounce of Jolly Sailor. (WFM)
And it didn't stop being magic just because you found out how it was done ... (WFM)
You couldn't tell someone with half his face dyed dark blue and a sword as big as he was that you weren't really a witch. You couldn't disappoint someone like that. (WFM)
‘Ye can just rush in. We always just rush in.’
‘Aye, Big Yan, point well made. But ye gotta know where ye’re just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in anywhere. It looks bad, havin’ to rush oout again straight awa’.’ (WFM)
‘Whut’s the plan, Rob?’ said one of them.
‘OK, lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?’
This caused a cheer.
‘Ach, ‘tis a good plan,’ said Daft Wullie. (WFM)
‘…on my honour.’
‘On your honour as a drunken rowdy thief?’ said Tiffany.
Rob Anybody beamed. ‘Aye!’ he said. ‘An’ I got a lot of good big reputation to protect there!’ (WFM)
… she thought there should be a word meaning ‘a word that sounds like the noise a thing would make if that thing made a noise even though, actually, it doesn’t, but would if it ‘did’.
Glint, for example. If light made a noise as it reflected off a distant window, it’d go ‘glint!’ And the light of tinsel, all those little glints chiming together, would make a noise like ‘glitterglitter’. ‘Gleam’ was a clean, smooth noise from a surface that intended to shine all day. And ‘glisten’ was the soft, almost greasy sound of something rich and oily. (WFM)
... it's the job of grandmothers to be happy when grandchildren give them things. (WFM)
'First sight is when you can see what's really there, not what you heid tells you ought to be there. Ye saw Jenny, Ye saw the horseman, Ye saw them as real thingies second sight is dull sight, it's seeing only what you expect to see.' (WFM)
It was very unusual for Granny Aching to say more than a sentence. She used words as if they cost money. (WFM)
‘An’ they willnae let me play doon there on account o’ them sayin’ my playin’ sounds like a spider tryin’ to fart through its ears…’ (WFM)
‘What’s your name, pictsie?’ she said.
‘No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, mistress. There’s no’ that many Feegle names, ye ken, so we ha’ to share.’ (WFM)
No words could describe what a Feegle in a kilt looks like upside down, so they won't try. (WFM)
‘How can a man six inches high train a bird like that?’ she asked as the buzzard circled again for height.
‘Ach, all it takes is a wee drop o’ kindness, mistress,’ said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.
‘Really?’
‘Aye, an’ a big dollop o’ cruelty…’ (WFM)
The period of time it takes a pictsie to go from normal to mad fighting mood is so tiny it can't be measured on the smallest clock. (WFM)
The Nac Mac Feegle would fight and steal, certainly, but who wanted to fight the weak and steal from the poor? (WFM)
You could read the Nac Mac Feegle like a book. And it would be a big, simple book with pictures of Spot the Dog and a Big Red Ball and one or two sentences on each page. (WFM)
‘There can only be one t’ousand!’ (WFM)
It’s amazing what a child who is quiet and observant can learn, and this includes things people don’t think she is old enough to know. (WFM)
‘What’s magic, eh? Just wavin’ a stick an’ sayin’ a few wee magical words. An’ what’s so clever aboot that, eh? But lookin’ at things, really lookin’ at ‘em, and then workin’ ‘em oout, now, that’s a real skill.’ (WFM)
‘Them as can do, has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.’ (WFM)
'Fear' was only one of thousands of words the pictsies probably didn't know the meaning of. (WFM)
People who say things like 'may all your dreams come true' should try living in one for five minutes. (WFM)
As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got dirty and sulked. Any seen dancing and skipping and singing had probably been stung by a wasp. (WFM)
‘…it was better to belong where you don’t belong than not belong where you used to belong, remembering when you used to belong there…’ (WFM)
'There's nothing we cannae get in or oot of.'
'Except maybe pubs,' said Big Yan.
'Oh, aye,' said Rob Anybody cheerfully. 'Gettin' oot o' pubs sometimes causes us a cerrrtain amount o' difficulty, I'll grant ye that.' (WFM)
'Is this the wee bairn? Ach, what a noseful o' bogeys!' (WFM)
Rob Anybody looked offended. ‘We ne’er get lost!’ he said. ‘We always ken where we are! It’s just sometimes mebbe we aren’t sure where everything else is, but it’s no’ our fault if everything else gets lost! The Nac Mac Feegle are never lost!’ (WFM)
Being right doesn’t always work. (WFM)
‘The secret is not to dream,’ she whispered, ‘The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I’m going.’ (WFM)
No wonder we dream our way through lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really was…no one could stand that for long. (WFM)
‘We look to…the edges,’ said Mistress Weatherwax. ‘There’s a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong…an’ they need watchin’. We watch ‘em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That’s important.’ (WFM)
'There's ways and ways of not askin', if you get my meaning. People like to see a happy witch.' (WFM)
‘There’s no harm in the occasional cackle…’ (WFM)
‘The thing about witchcraft,’ said Mistress Weatherwax, ‘is that it’s not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin’ out how you passed it. It’s a bit like life in that respect.’ (WFM)
‘…I always say the occasional tremble does you good.’ (WFM)
…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 is no such word as 'moonlight' but it would be nice if there was. (WFM)
