taanukii

[taanukii]

Can't forget Nanny's interjection a bit later:

“Bugger destiny,” agreed Nanny.

“Could be some destiny at work there.”

Hwel shrugged. Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn’t trust it. Often you couldn’t even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else—coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer. He used destiny a lot. As a tool for his plays it was even better than a ghost.

There was nothing like a bit of destiny to get the old plot rolling. But it was a mistake to think you could spot the shape of it. And as for thinking it could be controlled…

[taanukii]

“Thou babblest, man. See how I dodge thy tortoise spear. I said, see how I dodge thy tortoise spear. Thy spear, man. You’re holding it in thy bloody hand, for goodness’ sake.”

The guard gave him a desperate, frozen grin. Tomjon hesitated.

Three other actors around him were staring fixedly at the witches. Looming up in front of him with all the inevitability of a tax demand was a sword fight during which, it was beginning to appear, he would have to parry his own wild thrusts and stab himself to death.

[taanukii]

Death's eyeless skull took in the line of costumes, the waxy debris of the makeup table.

There was something here, he thought, that nearly belonged to the gods. Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflects the landscape.

And yet…and yet… Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from—hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued.

They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in. He was fascinated.

[taanukii]

“Could be some destiny at work there.”

Hwel shrugged. Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn’t trust it. Often you couldn’t even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else—coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer. He used destiny a lot. As a tool for his plays it was even better than a ghost.

There was nothing like a bit of destiny to get the old plot rolling. But it was a mistake to think you could spot the shape of it. And as for thinking it could be controlled…

[taanukii]

“Yes, but when do you actually become a witch?”

“When the other witches treat you as one, I suppose.” Magrat sighed. “If they ever do,” she added. “I thought they would after I did that spell in the corridor. It was pretty good, after all.”

“Marry, ’twas a rite of passage,” said the Fool, unable to stop himself. Magrat gave him a blank look.

[taanukii]

Nothing in the sight of mortal man had in fact changed. What Magrat had achieved was a mere adjustment of the mental processes, from a bewildered and slightly frightened woman gliding inexorably toward the inhospitable ground to a clearheaded, optimistic and positive thinking woman who had really got it together, was taking full responsibility for her own life and in general knew where she was coming from although, unfortunately, where she was heading had not changed in any way. But she felt a lot better about it.

[taanukii]

A year went past. The days followed one another patiently. Right back at the beginning of the multiverse they had tried all passing at the same time, and it hadn’t worked.

[taanukii]

The Fool jingled miserably across the floor.

[taanukii]

“It’s shameful!” snapped Granny. “And the poor dead thing still lying there!”

Magrat gave an imploring look to Nanny Ogg.

“I reckon,” she said slowly, “I reckon it’s all just pretendin’. Look, he’s still breathing.”

The rest of the audience, who by now had already decided that this commentary was all part of the play, stared as one man at the corpse.

It blushed.

[taanukii]

Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.

[taanukii]

"Students, eh? Love ’em or hate ’em, you’re not allowed to hit ’em with a shovel."

[taanukii]

He didn’t have the imagination, but he was also one of those rare individuals who are totally focused in time. Most people aren’t. They live their lives as a sort of temporal blur around the point where their body actually is—anticipating the future, or holding onto the past. They’re usually so busy thinking about what happens next that the only time they ever find out what is happening now is when they come to look back on it. Most people are like this. They learn how to fear because they can actually tell, down at the subconscious level, what is going to happen next. It’s already happening to them.

[taanukii]

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. But there was a full moon breasting the ragged clouds and the rushing air was full of whispers and the very broad hint of magic.

[taanukii]

Gods do not play dice. Or chess with the fates of mortals and the thrones of kings. They haven’t got the imagination. Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god’s idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs. And they always cheat, right up to the end…

[taanukii]

The One Horseman And The Three Pedestrians Of The Apocalypse

[taanukii]

When a young lady's mouth looks like a letterbox, it's best to do what she says.

[taanukii]

In a truly magical universe everything has its opposite. For example, there’s anti-light. That’s not the same as darkness, because darkness is merely the absence of light. Anti-light is what you get if you pass through darkness and out the other side. On the same basis, a state of knurdness isn’t like sobriety. By comparison, sobriety is like having a bath in cotton wool. Knurdness strips away all illusion, all the comforting pink fog in which people normally spend their lives, and lets them see and think clearly for the first time ever. Then, after they’ve screamed a bit, they make sure they never get knurd again.