Stupid words. As if any bard cared for any opinion except those of other bards,
Stupid words. As if any bard cared for any opinion except those of other bards, who’d spent a lifetime learning how to listen to music. But said, nevertheless.
Stupid words. As if any bard cared for any opinion except those of other bards, who’d spent a lifetime learning how to listen to music.
CONSIDER THE SIZE OF THE ROOM . . . . . . which went on to infinity, or as near infinity as makes no difference. In fact it was about a mile.
Susan hated Literature. She’d much prefer to read a good book.
She listened with half an ear to what the rest of the class was doing. It was a poem about daffodils. Apparently the poet had liked them very much.
Susan was quite stoic about this. It was a free country. People could like daffodils if they wanted to. They just should not, in Susan’s very definite and precise opinion, be allowed to take up more than a page to say so.
She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it. Around her, the poet’s vision was
She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it.
Around her, the poet’s vision was taken apart with inexpert tools.
“Yes,” said the skull. “Quit while you’re a head, that’s what I say.”
“I’d better be going,” said Susan. “Miss Butts always checks the dorms on the stroke of midnight.” “How many dormitories are there?” said the raven. “About thirty, I think.” “You believe she checks them all at midnight and you don’t believe in the Hogfather?”
She realized she didn’t have any money on her. On the other hand, no one had asked her for any. But the world would go to wrack and ruin if people didn’t recognize their responsibilities.
It was also black. Everything was black, or a shade of grey. Here and there a tint suggested a very deep
Humans have to put up with Time, but days are a sort of personal option.
There had been The Quizzing Device, a three-ton water-driven monstrosity based on a recently discovered design by Leonard of Quirm. It had been a bad idea. Captain Carrot of the Watch, who had a mind like a needle under his open, smiling face, had surreptitiously substituted a new roll of questions like: Were you nere Vortin’s Diamond Warehourse on the Nite of the 15th? and: Who was the Third Man Who did the Blagging At Bearhugger’s Distillery Larst week? and had arrested three customers before they caught on.
Buddy wasn’t a drummer or a troll and could see the technical flaw in Glod’s argument.
“He can’t stop us. We’re on a mission from Glod.”
skilled artist and certified genius, with a mind that wandered so much it came back with souvenirs.
Leonard had been a genius and was deeply sensitive to the wonders of the world, so the margins were full of detailed doodles of whatever was on his mind at that moment—vast water-powered engines for bringing down city walls on the heads of the enemy, new types of siege guns for pumping flaming oil over the enemy, gunpowder rockets that showered the enemy with burning phosphorus, and other manufactures of the Age of Reason.
The Archchancellor made himself comfortable at his snooker table. He’d long ago got rid of the official desk. A snooker table was much to be preferred. Things didn’t fall off the edge, there were a number of handy pockets to keep sweets and things in, and when he was bored he could shovel the paperwork off and set up trick shots.
He never bothered to shovel the paperwork back on afterward. In his experience, anything really important never got written down, because by then people were too busy shouting.
what was it you were tryin’ to do?” “I was practicing, er, riffs,” said the Dean. He waved a badly printed woodcut defensively in Ridcully’s face. The Archchancellor grabbed it. “‘Blert Wheedown’s Guitar Primer,’” he read. “‘Play your Way to Succefs in Three Easy Lefsons and Eighteen Hard Lefsons.’ Well? I’ve nothin’ against guitars, pleasant airs, a-spying young maidens one morning in May and so on, but that wasn’t playin’. That was just noise. I mean, what was it supposed to be?” “A lick based on an E pentatonic scale using the major seventh as a passing tone?” said the Dean.
“You’ve never been musical, Dean,” said Ridcully. “It’s one of your good points.
Dwarfs respected learning, provided they didn’t have to experience it.
MOST PEOPLE ARE RATHER STUPID AND WASTE THEIR LIVES. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? HAVE YOU NOT LOOKED DOWN FROM THE HORSE AT A CITY AND THOUGHT HOW MUCH IT RESEMBLED AN ANT HEAP, FULL OF BLIND CREATURES WHO THINK THEIR MUNDANE LITTLE WORLD IS REAL? YOU SEE THE LIGHTED WINDOWS AND WHAT YOU WANT TO THINK IS THAT THERE MUST BE MANY INTERESTING STORIES BEHIND THEM, BUT WHAT YOU KNOW IS THAT REALLY THERE ARE JUST DULL, DULL SOULS, MERE CONSUMERS OF FOOD, WHO THINK THEIR INSTINCTS ARE EMOTIONS AND THEIR TINY LIVES OF MORE ACCOUNT THAN A WHISPER OF WIND.
“Ah, we certainly know what goes into good beer in Ankh-Morpork,” he said. The wizards nodded. They certainly did. That’s why they were drinking gin and tonic.
They seemed to positively enjoy becoming less and less certain about everything and would come in to dinner saying things like “Wow, we’ve just overturned Marrowleaf’s Theory of Thaumic Imponderability! Amazing!” as if it was something to be proud of, instead of gross discourtesy.
thaum, the smallest unit of magic. The Archchancellor
“What are they?” he said. And then, from the depths of memory, a horrible answer suggested itself. Only a very specific species had names like that. “Students?” “Er. Yes?” said Ponder, backing away. “That’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, this is a university . . .” Ridcully scratched his ear. The man was right, of course. You had to have some of the buggers around, there was no getting away from it.
Scum, you . . . you can play the drums.” Dunno how, said Scum. It was actually his name. No one knows how to play the drums, said Crash patiently. There’s nothing to know. You just hit them with the sticks. Yeah, but what if I sort of miss? Sit closer.
“Who’s the most famous horn player there ever was, Glod?” “Brother Charnel,” said the dwarf promptly. “Everyone knows that. He stole the altar gold from the Temple of Offler and had it made into a horn and played magical music until the gods caught up with him and pulled his—” “Right,” said Buddy. “But if you went out there now and asked who the most famous horn player is, would they remember some felonious monk or would they shout for Glod Glodsson?”
“Wish I knew what it was that keeps you lads working all hours,” he said. “I never found magic that interesting when I was a lad. Go and fetch some coffee for Mr. Stibbons here, will you? And then get your friends.” Skazz bustled off and Ridcully was left alone, except for the slumbering Ponder. “What is it they do?” he said. He never really tried to find out.
“You tellin’ me ants can count?” “Oh, no. Not individual ants . . . it’s a bit hard to explain . . . the holes in the cards, you see, block up some tubes and let them through others and . . .” Ponder sighed, “we think it might be able to do other things.” “Like what?” Ridcully demanded. “Er, that’s what we’re trying to find out . . .” “You’re trying to find out? Who built it?” “Skazz.” “And now you’re trying to find out what it does?”
“Excuse me,” said Big Mad Adrian, his voice cargoed with suspicion. “I don’t want to cause any trouble, right, but is this Death or not? I’ve seen pictures, and they didn’t look like her.” “We did the Rite stuff,” said Ridcully. “And this is what we got.”
Ridcully felt rather alone. He’d quite enjoyed talking to the girl. She seemed to be the only person in the place who wasn’t mildly insane or totally preoccupied with something that he, Ridcully, didn’t understand.
Asphalt cracked his whip over the horses. They ambled off at a pace that suggested they intended to keep it up all day, and no idiot too soft to really use a whip properly was going to change their minds.
It was worrying him, too. He’d have been a little bit happier if there’d been a demon or some sort of magic. Something simple and understandable. He didn’t like the idea of meddling in science.
we thought the name was holding us back.” “How could it be holding you back? You aren’t moving
verities, but who has to sort it out when all’s said and done . . . Muggins,
The Patrician was a pragmatist. He never tried to fix things that worked. Things that didn’t work, however, got broken.
So there was no reason to worry if they weren’t here right now. But they weren’t here right now. Dibbler was worried.