Make Me Laugh?
Quotes from Terry Pratchett's "Thief of Time."
One of life's certainties is that there is generally a last chocolate hidden in all those empty wrappers.
Death found Pestilence in a hospice in Llamedos. Pestilence like hospitals. There was always something for him to do. Currently he was trying to remove the "Now Wash Your Hands" sign over a cracked basin. "Soap? I'll give 'em soap!"
I've never liked philosophers. They make it all sound so grand and simple, and then you step out into a world that's full of complications.
IT HAS BEEN RATHER PEACEFUL OF LATE, I AGREE, said Death.
"Peaceful?" Said War. "Ha! I may as well change m'name to 'Police Action' or 'Negotiated Settlement'! Remember the old days? Warriors used to froth at the mouth! Arms and legs bouncing in all directions! Great time, eh?" He leaned across and slapped Death on the back. "I'll bag 'em and you'll tag'em, what?"
This looked hopeful, Death thought.
Age and wisdom don't necessarily go together. Some people just become stupid with more authority.
A chocolate you did not want to eat does not count as chocolate. This discovery is from the same brand of culinary physics that determined that food eaten while walking along contains no calories.
The yeti of the Ramtops, are one of the few creatures to utilize control of personal time for a genetic advantage. The result is a kind of physical premonition-you find out what is going to happen next by allowing it to happen. Faced with danger, or any kind of task that involves risk of death, a yeti will save its life up to that point and then proceed with all due caution. Yet in the comfortable knowledge that, should everything go pancake-shaped, it will wake up at the point where it saved itself with, and this is the important part, knowledge of the events which have just happened but which will not happen now because it's not going to be such a damn fool next time.
People have been messing around with time ever since they were people. Wasting it, killing it, sparing it, making it up. And they do it. People's heads were made to play with time. You watch the Procrastinators even on a quiet day. Moving time, stretching it here, compressing it there; it's a big job.
You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. ... Trolls and dwarfs had it, too, that strange ability to look at the universe and think 'oh, the same as yesterday, how dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock on that head?"
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying "End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH," the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
Nine-tenths of the universe is the knowledge of the position and direction of everything in the other tenth. Every atom has its biography, every star its file, every chemical exchange its equivalent of the inspector with a clipboard. It is unaccounted for because it is doing the accounting for the rest of it.
Nine-tenths of the universe, in fact, is the paperwork.
One of life's certainties is that there is generally a last chocolate hidden in all those empty wrappers.
Death found Pestilence in a hospice in Llamedos. Pestilence like hospitals. There was always something for him to do. Currently he was trying to remove the "Now Wash Your Hands" sign over a cracked basin. "Soap? I'll give 'em soap!"
I've never liked philosophers. They make it all sound so grand and simple, and then you step out into a world that's full of complications.
IT HAS BEEN RATHER PEACEFUL OF LATE, I AGREE, said Death.
"Peaceful?" Said War. "Ha! I may as well change m'name to 'Police Action' or 'Negotiated Settlement'! Remember the old days? Warriors used to froth at the mouth! Arms and legs bouncing in all directions! Great time, eh?" He leaned across and slapped Death on the back. "I'll bag 'em and you'll tag'em, what?"
This looked hopeful, Death thought.
Age and wisdom don't necessarily go together. Some people just become stupid with more authority.
A chocolate you did not want to eat does not count as chocolate. This discovery is from the same brand of culinary physics that determined that food eaten while walking along contains no calories.
The yeti of the Ramtops, are one of the few creatures to utilize control of personal time for a genetic advantage. The result is a kind of physical premonition-you find out what is going to happen next by allowing it to happen. Faced with danger, or any kind of task that involves risk of death, a yeti will save its life up to that point and then proceed with all due caution. Yet in the comfortable knowledge that, should everything go pancake-shaped, it will wake up at the point where it saved itself with, and this is the important part, knowledge of the events which have just happened but which will not happen now because it's not going to be such a damn fool next time.
People have been messing around with time ever since they were people. Wasting it, killing it, sparing it, making it up. And they do it. People's heads were made to play with time. You watch the Procrastinators even on a quiet day. Moving time, stretching it here, compressing it there; it's a big job.
You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. ... Trolls and dwarfs had it, too, that strange ability to look at the universe and think 'oh, the same as yesterday, how dull. I wonder what happens if I bang this rock on that head?"
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying "End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH," the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
Nine-tenths of the universe is the knowledge of the position and direction of everything in the other tenth. Every atom has its biography, every star its file, every chemical exchange its equivalent of the inspector with a clipboard. It is unaccounted for because it is doing the accounting for the rest of it.
Nine-tenths of the universe, in fact, is the paperwork.
posted by Anemone Flynn | 1/31/2006 02:47:00 PM
7 Comments:
hello, just thought i'd comment , any new years resolutions by the way
Hmm? Oh, no. Like I heard someone else say, I don't change that quickly. Gotta phase stuff in, over the entire year. I started making resolutions last November -- hopefully some of them will carry over.
Heidi
heidi, these are hilarious!
So, I was going to stop by on my way home tonight. I know you're not supposed to tell people that, but I thought you might like to know.
But I was on the verge of tears and thought, "If it's an inconvenience to the household, I'd just collapse into a mound of ridiculous blubbering."
Don't worry, it was nothing serious. I'm just being silly about a 12 month old.
I have no idea how mothers can leave their babies to go to work.
Liz,
You can come cry at our house any time. I do it all the time.
Heidi,
Interesting quotes...reminds me that there is a tendency to take the wrong things too seriously and pass over that which really matters.
Here's something that came up in a discussion lately:
God is trying to teach us all the same lessons, but some of us just get irritated and make great attempts to avoid the situations instead of adjusting our attitudes and digging into the challenge on God's terms. (this can be applied to the realm of 'child-care' choices, Liz)
Hmmm, yes. Sad how many of us try to avoid the fire - the very thing that would refine us.
And yet I do it all the time. I find myself thinking, "what is the quickest, easiest way to enjoy a pain-free life?"
Heidi's Mommy, did my mum ever tell you about the day I told her I didn't think I could have children? I decided there would be too much pain that I just didn't want to endure.
Of course, I also "decided" I couldn't get married either...for the same reason.
But even if I decided not to leave my bed for pains' sake, I'd get bedsores.
I miss seeing you too, Liz! Of course, there's no guarantee I'd be home on any particular evening. I've got Bible studies on Wed. and Thurs.
Your comment about the bedsores is very perceptive.
Heidi
wow, you're going to make it to the third and highest heaven, Heidi!
...only if I thought you really placed any sort of salvation significance on going to TWO Bible studies ;o)
Well, I just interviewed for an ER scribe position at St.Lukes. Things look hopeful that I'll get it. Of course, things look less-than-hopeful that I'd have more time at home! Same as you, I always seem to be running...always running...
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