Terry Pratchett
English fantasy author, most famous for his Discworld series.
"You can get there!"
"I can get there!"
"You're a natural at counting to two!"
"I'm a nat'ral at counting to two!"
"If you can count to two, you can count to anything!"
"If I can count to two, I can count to anything!"
"And then the world is your mollusc!"
"My mollusc! What's a mollusc?"
Oh, come on. Revelation was a mushroom dream that belonged in the Apocrypha. The New Testament is basically about what happened when God got religion
"These times are not necessarily good, and not necessarily bad. In fact, what they are depends on what we are."
It was quite impossible to describe. Here is what it looked like. It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.
Silverfish looked down. "Oh. Are you a dwarf?" Cuddy gave him a blank stare. "Are you a giant?" He said. "Me? Of course not!" "Ah. Then I must be a dwarf, yes."
"Right!"
"Right!"
As for The Mapp... I suspect it'll never get a US publication. It seemed to frighten US publishers. They don't seem to understand it.
That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans:
A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?
I make no suggestion that one side or other is right, but observation over many years leads me to believe it is true.
And the new day was a great big fish.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
I mean, I wouldn't pay more than a couple of quid to see me, and I'm me.
Too many people want to have written.
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
I don't believe. I never have, not in big beards in the sky.
'You're not going to die, are you sir?' he said.
'Of course I am. Everyone is. That's what being alive is all about.'
"There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do."
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.
I'd like to stand up for the rights of people who put everything on their burger -- chutney, mustard, pickle, mustard pickle, tomato sauce... It is common knowledge in my family that I can't tell the difference between a veggie burger and a meat one, because the ratio of burger to pickles is so high. [either misquoted or mis-thought, since not to be able to tell would mean the burger:pickles ratio is so low]
Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants — the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare becoming a mere lower-class brawl.
Belief was never mentioned at home, but right actions were taught by daily example.
Possibly because of this, I have never disliked religion. I think it has some purpose in our evolution.
I don't have much truck with the "religion is the cause of most of our wars" school of thought because that is manifestly done by mad, manipulative and power-hungry men who cloak their ambition in God.
I number believers of all sorts among my friends. Some of them are praying for me. I'm happy they wish to do this, I really am, but I think science may be a better bet.