%title Lords and Ladies (12)
# p. 122 (Harper Torch edition)
%passage 1
-Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
-Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
-Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
-Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
-Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
-Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
-
-The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake,
-and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have
+Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
+Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
+Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
+Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
+Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
+Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
+
+The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake,
+and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have
changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
#
#
#
-%title Thief of Time (1)
+%title Thief of Time (8)
%passage 1
"No running with scythes!"
[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
+# p. 24 (Harper Torch edition)
+%passage 2
+Silver stars weren't awarded frequently, and gold starts happened less
+than once a fortnight, and were vied for accordingly. Right now, Miss
+Susan selected a silver star. Pretty soon Vincent the Keen would have a
+galaxy of his very own. To give him his due, he was quite disinterested
+in which kind of star he got. Quantity, that was what he liked. Miss
+Susan had privately marked him down as Boy Most Likely To Be Killed One
+Day By His Wife.
+
+ [Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 53 ('... with the chorus:', '"Do not act...' are separate paragraphs;
+# 'challanger' has been cowed after finding out that the little old
+# man he challanged--for entering the dojo--is actually Lu-Tze)
+%passage 3
+As Lobsang followed the ambling Lu-Tze, he heard the dojo master, who like
+all teachers never missed an opportunity to drive home a lesson, say:
+"Dojo! What is Rule One?"
+
+Even the cowering challanger mumbled along with the chorus:
+
+"Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling
+man!"
+
+ [Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 74-75 (the novices didn't know that the little old man known as Sweeper
+# is actually Lu-Tze; see passage 3 regarding Rule One)
+%passage 4
+One day a group of senior novices, for mischief, kicked over the little
+shrine that Lu-Tze kept beside his sleeping mat.
+
+Next morning, no sweepers turned up for work. They stayed in their huts
+with the doors barred. After making inquiries, the abbot, who at that time
+was fifty years old again, summoned the three novices to his room. There
+were three brooms leaning against the wall. He spoke as follows:
+
+"You know that the dreadful Battle of Five Cities did not happen because
+the messenger got there in time?"
+
+They did. You learned this early in your studies. And they bowed
+nervously, because this was the abbot, after all.
+
+"And you know then that when the messenger's horse threw a shoe he espied
+a man trudging beside the road carrying a small portable forge and pushing
+an anvil on a barrow?"
+
+They knew.
+
+"And you know that man was Lu-tze?"
+
+They did.
+
+"Surely you know that Janda Trapp, Grand Master of /Oki-doki/, /Toro-fu/,
+and /Chang-fu/, has only ever yielded to one man?"
+
+They knew.
+
+"And you know that man is Lu-Tze?"
+
+They did.
+
+"You know the little shrine you kicked over last night?"
+
+They knew.
+
+"You know it had an owner?"
+
+There was silence. Then the brightest of the novices looked up at the
+abbot in horror, swallowed, picked up one of the three brooms, and walked
+out of the room.
+
+The other two were slower of brain and had to follow the story all the way
+through to the end.
+
+Then one of them said, "But it was only a sweeper's shrine!"
+
+"You will take up the brooms and sweep," said the abbot, "and you will
+sweep every day, and you will sweep until the day you find Lu-Tze and dare
+to say 'Sweeper, it was I who knocked over and scattered your shrine and
+now I will in humility accompany you to the dojo on the Tenth Djim, in
+order to learn the Right Way.' Only then, if you are still able, may you
+resume your studies here. Understood?"(1)
+
+Older monks sometimes complained, but someone would always say: "Remember
+that Lu-Tze's Way is not our Way. Remember he learned everything by
+sweeping unheeded while students were being educated. Remember, he has
+been everywhere and done many things. Perhaps he is a little... strange,
+but remember he walked into a citadel full of armed men and traps and
+nevertheless saw to it that the Pash of Muntab choked innocently on a fish
+bone. No monk is better than Lu-Tze at finding the Time and the Place."
+
+Some, who did not know, would say: "What is this Way that gives him so
+much power?"
+
+And they were told: "It is the Way of Mrs. Marietta Cosmopolite, 3 Quirm
+Street, Ankh-Morpork, Rooms To Rent Very Reasonable. No, we don't
+understand it, either. Some subsendential rubbish, apparently."
+
+(1) And the story continues: The novice who had protested that it was only
+the shrine of a sweeper ran away from the temple; the student who said
+nothing remained a sweeper for the rest of his life; and the student who
+has seen the inevitable shape of the story went, after much agonizing and
+several months of meticulous sweeping, to Lu-Tze and knelt and asked to be
+shown the Right Way. Whereupon the sweeper took him to the dojo of the
+Tenth Djim, with its terrible multibladed fighting machines and its
+fearsome serrated weapons such as the /clong-clong/ and the /uppsi/. The
+story runs that the sweeper then opened a cupboard at the back of the dojo
+and produced a broom and spake thusly: "One hand /here/ and the other
+/here/, understand? People never get it right. Use good, even strokes
+and let the broom do most of the work. Never try to sweep up a big pile,
+you'll end up sweeping every bit of dust twice. Use your dustpan wisely,
+and remember: a small brush for the corners."
+
+ [Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 102 ('coming here': to the remote mountains where the monks live)
+%passage 5
+"But did not Wen say that if the truth is anywhere, it is everywhere?" said
+Lobsang.
+
+"Well done. I see you learned /something/, at least. But one day it
+seemed to me that everyone else had decided that wisdom can only be found a
+long way off. So I went to Ankh-Morpork. They were all coming here, so it
+seemed only fair.
+
+"Seeking /enlightenment/?"
+
+"No. The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while
+I was waiting, it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more
+fun," said Lu-Tze. "After all, enlightenment begins where perplexity ends.
+And I found perplexity. And a kind of enlightenment, too. I had not been
+there for five minutes, for example, when some men in an alley tried to
+enlighten me of what little I possessed, giving me a valuable lesson in
+the ridiculousness of material things."
+
+ [Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 286 (food in general, and chocolate in particular, has proven to be an
+# effective 'weapon' against Auditors who've taken on human form)
+%passage 6
+"Let's get up into Zephyr Street," said Susan.
+
+"What is there for us?"
+
+"Wienrich and Boettcher."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"I think the original Herr Wienrich and Frau Boettcher died a long time ago.
+But the shop still does very good business," said Susan, darting across the
+street. "We need ammunition."
+
+Lady LeJean caught up.
+
+"Oh. They make chocolate?" she said.
+
+"Does a bear poo in the woods?" said Susan and realized her mistake right
+away.(1)
+
+Too late. Lady LeJean looked thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"Yes," she said at last. "Yes, I believe that most varities do, indeed,
+excrete, as you suggest, at least in the temperate zones, but there are
+several that--"
+
+"I mean to say that, yes, they make chocolate," said Susan.
+
+(1) Teaching small children for any length of time can do this to a
+vocabulary.
+
+ [Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 308
+%passage 7
+Kaos listened to history.
+
+There were new words. Wizards and philosophers had found Chaos, which is
+Kaos with his hair combed and a tie on, and had found in the epitome of
+disorder a new order undreamed of. /There are different kinds of rules./
+/From the simple comes the complex, and from the complex comes a different/
+/kind of simplicity. Chaos is order in a mask.../
+
+Chaos. Not dark, ancient Kaos, left behind by the evolving universe, but
+new, shiny Chaos, dancing in the heart of everything. The idea was
+strangely attractive. And it was a reason to go on living.
+
+ [Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 355 (starts mid-paragraph, with a clause about eating in class omitted)
+%passage 8
+[...] Susan [...] took the view that, if there were rules, they applied to
+everyone, even her. Otherwise they were merely tyranny. But rules were
+there to make you think before you broke them.
+
+ [Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
%e title
#
#
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