| "Ipslore, an eighth son of an eighth son and much against the practices of wizards, is a wizard and has married and had eight sons. As Death comes to collect him, he disappears into a metal wizard's staff and vows to use his son to gain power in Ankh-Morpork and beyond. As the son, Coin, takes over Unseen University, so the Archchencellor's hat decides to make a break for it, raking Rincewind along with him.." "Terry Pratchet" by Andrew M Butler |
| Targets |
| Practices of magic and management by committee. |
NOTHING IS FINAL. NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE. EXCEPT ME, OF COURSE. *** Death: YOU'RE ONLY PUTTING OFF THE INEVITABLE. *** "And what would humans be without love?" *** He was tall and wiry and looked as though he had been a horse in previous lives and had only just avoided it in this one. He always gave people the impression that he was looking at them with his teeth. *** In some parts of the city curiousity didn't just kill the cat, it threw it in the river with lead weights tied to its feet. *** Spelter was thinking, eight sons, that means he did it eight times. At least. Gosh. *** ...that voice would have made even a statue get down off its pedestal for a few brisk laps of the playing field and fifty press-ups. It was a voice that could make "Good morning" sound like an invitation to bed. *** "Quick, you must come with me," she said. "You're in great danger!" *** Rincewind: "Why are they chasing you?" *** Standing side by side they looked almost exactly like the number 10. *** Coin was pointing to the portraits and statues of former Archchancellors, which decorated the walls. Full-bearded and pointy-hatted, clutching ornamental scrolls or holding mysterious symbolic bits of astrological equipment, they stared down with ferocious self-importance or, possibly, chronic constipation. *** The current Patrician, head of the extremely rich and powerful Vetinari family, was thin, tall and apparently as cold-blooded as a dead penguin. Just by looking at him you could tell he was the sort of man you'd expect to keep a white cat, and caress it idly while sentencing people to death in a piranha tank; and you'd hazard for good measure that he probably collect rare thin porcelain, turning it over and over in his blue-white fingers while distant screams echoed from the depths of the dungeons. You wouldn't put it pass him to use the word 'equisite' and have thin lips. He looked the kind of person, who when they blink, you mark it off on the calendar. *** There were a few seconds of total silence as everyone waited to see what would happen next. And then Nijel uttered the battle cry that Rincewind would never quite forget to the end of his life. "Erm," he said, "excuse me..." *** Of course, Ankh-Morpork's citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure in any case. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed. *** It is a well-known established act throughout the many-dimensional worlds of the multiverse that most really great discoveries are owed to one brief moment of inspiration. There's a lot of spadework first, of course, but what clinches the whole thing is the sight of, say, a falling apple or a boiling kettle or the water slopping over the edge of the bath. Something goes click inside the observer's head and then everything falls into place. The shape of DNA, it is popularly said, owes its discovery to the chance sight of a spiral staircase when the scientist's mind was just at the right receptive temperature. Had he used the lift, the whole science of genetics might have been a good deal different. *** There's too many guards! They'll kill me! *** Rincewind: "If we get a chance, we run, right?" *** "But she's a ---" Rincewind hesitated. "She's of the female persuasion...." he muttered. *** Rincewind: "It's a sort of reaction. Wizards always used to build a tower around themselves, like those ... what do you call those things you find at the bottom of rivers?" *** "The world, you see, that is, the reality in which we live, in fact, it can be thought of as, in a matter of speaking, a rubber sheet." He hesitated, aware that the sentence was not going to appear in anyone's book of quotable quotes. *** Althought it has nothing much to do with this story, it is an interesting fact that, about five hundred miles away, a small flock, or rather in this case a herd, of birds were picking their way cautiously through the trees. They had heads like a flamingo, bodies like a turkey, and legs like a Sumo wrestler; they walked in a jerky, bobbing fashion, as though their heads were attached to their feet by elastic bands. They belonged to a species unique even among Disc fauna, in that their prime means of defence was to cause a predator to laugh so much that they could run away before it recovered. *** |
My name is Radostina Georgieva, "Roddy".I live in California.
I enjoy travelling, reading books, listening to music, going to the movies.
I am constantly looking for ways to challenge myself, learn, and grow.