#
#
#
-%title Soul Music (2)
+%title Soul Music (11)
%passage 1
-But this didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt
-like music
+But this didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt
+like music.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
%passage 2
-"Yes," said the skull. "Quit while you're a head, that's what I say."
+"Yes," said the skull. "Quit while you're a head, that's what I say."
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p.2 (Harper Torch edition)
+%passage 3
+But if it is true that the act of observing changes the thing which is
+observed,(1) it's even more true that it changes the observer.
+
+(1) Because of Quantum.
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p.8
+%passage 4
+It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
+In fact, whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the
+equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company
+written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 63-64
+%passage 5
+Then the skull said: "Kids today, eh?"
+
+"I blame education," said the raven.
+
+"A lot of knowledge is a dangerous thing," said the skull. "A lot more
+dangerous than just a little. I always used to say that, when I was
+alive."
+
+"When was that, exactly?"
+
+"Can't remember. I think I was pretty knowledgeable. Probably a teacher
+or philosopher, something of that kidney. And now I'm on a bench with a
+bird crapping on my head."
+
+"Very allegorical," said the raven.
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 87 (Stabbing: "in the" both capitalized; "and" not so)
+%passage 6
+The Mended Drum had traditionally gone in for, well, traditional pub games,
+such as dominoes, darts, and Stabbing People In The Back and Taking All
+Their Money. The new owner had decided to go up-market. This was the
+only available direction.
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 125-126 ("him"==Librarian;
+# Leonard of Quirm==Discworld analog of Leonardo da Vinci)
+%passage 7
+The Library didn't only contain magical books, the ones which are chained
+to their shelves and are very dangerous. It also contained perfectly
+ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be
+a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading
+them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did
+the more dangerous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the
+reader's brain.
+
+For example, the big volume open in front of him contained some of the
+collected drawings of Leonard of Quirm, skilled artist and certified
+genious, with a mind that wandered so much it came back with souvenirs.
+
+Leonard's books were full of sketches--of kittens, of the way water flows,
+of the wives of influential Ankh-Morporkian merchants whose portraits had
+provided his means of making a living. But 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 this mind at the 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 phosphorous, and
+other manufactures of the Age of Reason.
+
+And there had been something else. The Librarian had noticed it in
+passing once before, and had been slightly puzzled by it. It seemed out
+of place.(1)
+
+(1) And didn't appear to do anything to the enemy /at all/.
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 152 (much of the story concerns "Music With Rocks In")
+%passage 8
+Some religions say that the universe was started with a word, a song,
+a dance, a piece of music. The Listening Monks of the Ramtops have
+trained their hearing until they can tell the value of a playing card by
+listening to it, and have made it their task to listen intently to the
+subtle sounds of the universe to piece together, from the fossile echoes,
+the very first noises.
+
+There was certainly, they say, a very strange noise at the beginning of
+everything.
+
+But the keenest ears (the ones who win most at poker), who listen to the
+frozen echoes in the ammonites and amber, swear they can detect some tiny
+sounds before that.
+
+It sounded, they say, like someone counting: One, Two, Three, Four.
+
+The very best one, who listened to basalt, said he thought he could make
+out, very faintly, some numbers that came even earlier.
+
+When they asked him what it was, he said: "It sounds like One, Two."
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 227
+%passage 9
+The Death of Rats put his nose in his paws. It was a lot easier with
+rats.(1)
+
+(1) Rats had featured largely in the history of Ankh-Morpork. Shortly
+before the Patrician came to power there was a terrible plague of rats.
+The city council countered it by offering twenty pence for every rat
+tail. This did, for a week or two, reduce the number of rats--and then
+people were suddenly queueing up with tails, the city treasury was being
+drained, and no one seemed to be doing much work. And there /still/
+seemed to be a lot of rats around. Lord Vetenari had listened carefully
+while the problem was explained, and had solved the thing with one
+memorable phrase which said a lot about him, about the folly of bounty
+offers, and about the natural instinct of Ankh-Morporkians in any
+situtation involving money: "Tax the rat farms."
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 313-314 (Drongo and Big Mad Adrian are students)
+%passage 10
+The Archchancellor polished this staff as he walked along. It was a
+particularly good one, six feet long and quite magical. Not that he used
+magic very much. In his experience, anything that couldn't be disposed of
+with a couple of whacks from six feet of oak was probably immune to magic
+as well.
+
+"Don't you think we should have brought the senior wizards, sir?" said
+Ponder, struggling to keep up.
+
+"I'm afraid that taking them along in their present state of mind would
+only make what happens"--Ridcully sought for a useful phrase, and settled
+for--"happen worse. I've insisted they stay in college."
+
+"How about Drongo and the others?" said Ponder hopefully.
+
+"Would they be any good in the event of a thaumaturgical dimension rip of
+enormous proportions?" said Ridcully. "I remember poor Mr. Hong. One
+minute he was dishing up an order of double cod and mushy peas, the
+next ..."
+
+"Kaboom?" said Ponder.
+
+"Kaboom?" said Ridcully, forcing his way up the crowded street. "Not
+that I heard tell. More like 'Aaaaerrrr-scream-gristle- gristle-gristle-
+crack' and a shower of fried food. Big Mad Adrian and his friends any
+good when the chips are down?"
+
+"Um. Probably not, Archchancellor."
+
+"Correct. People shout and run about. That never did any good. A pocket
+full of decent spells and a well-charged staff will get you out of trouble
+nine times out of ten."
+
+"Nine times out of ten?"
+
+"Correct."
+
+"How many times have you had to rely on them, sir?"
+
+"Well ... there was Mr. Hong ... that business with the thing in the
+Bursar's wardrobe ... that dragon, you remember ..." Ridcully's lips
+moved silently as he counted on his fingers. "Nine times, so far."
+
+"It worked every time, sir?"
+
+"Absolutely! So there's no need to worry. Gangway! Wizard comin'
+through."
+
+ [Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 339
+%passage 11
+The wizards went rigid as the howl rang through the building. It was
+slightly animal but also mineral, metallic, edged like a saw.
+
+Eventually the Lecturer in Recent Runes said, "Of course, just because
+we've heard a spine-chilling blood-curdling scream of the sort to make
+your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn't automatically mean there's
+anything wrong."
+
+The wizards looked out into the corridor.
+
+"It came from downstairs somewhere," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies,
+heading for the staircase.
+
+"So why are you going /upstairs/?"
+
+"Because I'm not daft!"
+
+"But it might be some terrible emanation!"
+
+"You don't say?" said the Chair, still accelerating.
+
+"All right, please yourself. That's the students floor up there."
+
+"Ah, Er--"
+
+The Chair came down slowly, occasionally glancing fearfully up the stairs.
[Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
# Used for interaction with Death.
#
%section Death
-%title Death Quotes (3)
+%title Death Quotes (4)
%passage 1
WHERE THE FIRST PRIMAL CELL WAS, THERE WAS I ALSO. WHERE MAN IS, THERE AM I. WHEN THE LAST LIFE CRAWLS UNDER FREEZING STARS, THERE WILL I BE.
%e passage
%passage 3
THINK OF IT MORE AS BEING ... DIMESIONALLY DISADVANTAGED.
%e passage
+# Soul Music, p. 146 (Harper Torch edition; we omit "said Death," after comma)
+%passage 4
+I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.
+%e passage
%e title
%e section
projects / nethack / commitdiff