#
#
#
-%title Interesting Times (2)
+%title Interesting Times (10)
+# p.1 (footnote)
%passage 1
-Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate.
-People are always a little confused about this, as they are in
-the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death
-by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a
-miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of
-events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken
-just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's
+Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are
+always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles.
+When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of
+circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is
+killed by a freak chain of events--the oil spilled just there, the safety
+fence broken just there--that must also be a miracle. Just because it's
not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.
[Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
+# p. 18
%passage 2
-"Oh, no," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back.
-"Not that. That's meddling with things you don't understand."
-"Well, we are wizards," said Ridcully. "We're supposed to meddle in
-things we don't understand. If we hung around waitin' till we
-understood things we'd never get anything done."
+"Oh, no," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back. "Not
+that. That's meddling with things you don't understand."
+
+"Well, we /are/ wizards," said Ridcully. "We're supposed to meddle with
+things we don't understand. If we hung around waitin' till we understood
+things we'd never get anything done."
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 4
+%passage 3
+According to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest
+abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because
+it is better organized.
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 14
+%passage 4
+Many things went on at Unseen University and, regretably, teaching had to
+be one of them. The faculty had long ago confronted this fact and had
+perfected various devices for avoiding it. But this was perfectly all
+right because, to be fair, so had the students.
+
+The system worked quite well and, as happens in such cases, had taken on
+the status of a tradition. Lectures clearly took place, because they
+were down there on the timetable in black and white. The fact that no one
+attended was an irrelevant detail. It was occasionally maintained that
+this meant that the lectures did not in fact happen at all, but no one ever
+attended them to find out if this was true. Anyway, it was argued (by the
+Reader in Woolly Thinking(1)) that lectures had taken place /in essence/,
+so that was all right, too.
+
+And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old
+method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinty of a lot of books
+and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the
+actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns
+for exactly the same reason.
+
+(1) Which is like Fuzzy Logic, only less so.
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 20 (speaker is Archchancellor Ridcully; sad, hopless person is Rincewind)
+%passage 5
+"Wizzard?" he said. "What kind of sad, hopeless person needs to write
+WIZZARD on their hat?"
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 113
+%passage 6
+Self-doubt was something not regularly entertained within the Cohen cranium.
+When you're trying to carry a struggling temple maiden and a sack of looted
+temple goods in one hand and fight off half a dozen angry priests with the
+other there is little time for reflection. Natural selection saw to it
+that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves
+questions like "What is the purpose of life?" very quickly lacked both.
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 113 (same page as previous passage...)
+%passage 7
+Cohen's father had taken him to a mountain top, when he was no more than a
+lad, and explained to him the hero's creed and told him that there was no
+greater joy than to die in battle.
+
+Cohen had seen the flaw in this straight away, and a lifetime's experience
+had reinforced his belief that in fact a greater joy was to kill the /other/
+bugger in battle and end up sitting on a heap of gold higher than your
+horse. It was an observation that had served him well.
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 144
+%passage 8
+"'Dang'?" he said. "Wassat mean? And what's this 'darn' and 'heck'?"
+
+"They are ... /civilised/ swearwords." said Mr. Saveloy.
+
+"Well, you can take 'em and--"
+
+"Ah?" said Mr. Saveloy, raising a cautionary finger.
+
+"You can shove them up--"
+
+"Ah?"
+
+"You can--"
+
+"An?"
+
+Truckle shut his eyes and clenched his fists.
+
+"Darn it all to heck!" he shouted.
+
+"Good," said Mr. Saveloy. "That's much better."
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 219 (sic: "Dedd")
+%passage 9
+The taxman was warming to his new job. He'd worked out that although the
+Horde, as individuals, had acquired mountains of cash in their careers as
+barbarian heroes they'd lost almost all of it engaging in the other
+activities (he mentally catalogued these as Public Relations) necessary to
+the profession, and therefore were entitled to quite a considerable rebate.
+
+The fact that they were registered with no revenue collecting authority
+/anywhere/(1) was entirely a secondary point. It was the principle that
+counted. And the interest, too, of course.
+
+(1) Except on posters with legends like "Wanted--Dedd".
+
+ [Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 297
+%passage 10
+"What do we do now?" said Mr. Saveloy. "Do we do a battle chant or
+something?"
+
+"We just wait," said Cohen.
+
+"There's a lot of waiting in warfare," said Boy Willie.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Mr. Saveloy. "I've heard people say that. They say
+there's long periods of boredom followed by short periods of excitement."
+
+"Not really," said Cohen. "It's more like short periods of waiting
+followed by long periods of being dead."
[Interesting Times, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
#
#
%title Maskerade (4)
+# pp. 81-82, continued on pp. 87-89 (Harper Torch edition; apparently
+# transcribed from some other edition based on quote marks used;
+# a great number of very short paragraphs--it stretches a long way
+# when using a blank line to separate one paragraph from another;
+# one omitted bit is that after Granny suffles the deck of cards
+# and deals two poker hands, Death swaps them, suggesting that
+# he suspected her of cheating; initial transcription left off
+# the most interesting bit, Death's wink at the end)
%passage 1
-'Maybe you could... help us?'
+'Maybe you could ... help us?'
+
'What's wrong?'
-'It's my boy...'
-Granny opened the door further and saw the womand standing behind Mr. Slot.
-One look at her face was enough. There was a bundle in her arms. Granny
-stepped back. 'Bring him in and let me have a look at him.' She took the
- baby from the woman, sat down on the room's one chair, and pulled back the
-blanket. 'Hmm,' said Granny, after a while.
-'There's a curse on this house, that's what it is,' said Slot. 'My best
-cow's been taken mortally sick, too.' 'Oh? You have a cowshed?' siad
- Granny. 'Very good place for a sick-room, a cowshed. It's the warmth. You
-better show me were it is.' 'You want to take the boy down there?'
+
+'It's my boy ...'
+
+Granny opened the door farther and saw the woman standing behind Mr. Slot.
+One look at her face was enough. There was a bundle in her arms.
+
+Granny stepped back. 'Bring him in and let me have a look at him.'
+
+She took the baby from the woman, sat down on the room's one chair, and
+pulled back the blanket. Nanny Ogg peered over her shoulder.
+
+'Hmm,' said Granny, after a while. She glanced at Nanny, who gave an
+almost imperceptible shake of her head.
+
+'There's a curse on this house, that's what it is,' said Slot. 'My best
+cow's been taken mortally sick, too.'
+
+'Oh? You have a cowshed?' said Granny. 'Very good place for a sickroom,
+a cowshed. It's the warmth. You better show me where it is.'
+
+'You want to take the boy down there?'
+
'Right now.'
+
[...]
+
'How many have you come for?'
+
ONE.
+
'The cow?'
+
Death shook his head.
-'It could be the cow.'
-NO. THAT WOULD BE CHANGING HISTORY.
+
+'It could /be/ the cow.'
+
+NO. THAT WOULD BE CHANGING HISTORY.
+
'History is about things changing.'
+
NO.
+
Granny sat back.
-'Then I challenge you to a game. That's traditional. That's /allowed/.'
+
+'Then I challenge you to a game. That's traditional. That's /allowed/.'
+
Death was silent for a moment.
+
THIS IS TRUE.
+
'Good.'
-HOWEVER... YOU UNDERSTAND THAT TO WIN ALL YOU MUST GAMBLE ALL?
-'Double or quits? Yes, I know.'
+
+CHALLENGING ME BY MEANS OF A GAME IS ALLOWABLE.
+
+"Yes."
+
+HOWEVER ... YOU UNDERSTAND THAT TO WIN ALL YOU MUST GAMBLE ALL?
+
+'Double or quits? Yes, I know.'
+
BUT NOT CHESS.
+
'Can't abide chess.'
-OR CRIPPLE MR ONION. I'VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE RULES.
-'Very well. How about one hand of poker? Five cards each, no draws? Sudden
-death, as they say.' Death thought about this, too.
+
+OR CRIPPLE MR. ONION. I'VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE RULES.
+
+'Very well. How about one hand of poker? Five cards each, no draws?
+Sudden death, as they say.'
+
+Death thought about this, too.
+
YOU KNOW THIS FAMILY?
+
'No.'
+
THEN WHY?
+
'Are we talking or are we playing?'
+
OH, VERY WELL.
+
+ [...]
+
Granny looked at her cards, and threw them down.
-FOUR QUEENS. HMM. THAT /IS/ VERY HIGH.
+
+FOUR QUEENS. HMM. THAT /IS/ VERY HIGH.
+
Death looked down at his cards, and then up into Granny's steady, blue-eyed
-gaze. Neither moved for some time.
+gaze.
+
+Neither moved for some time.
+
Then Death laid the hand on the table.
-I LOSE. ALL I HAVE IS FOUR ONES.
+
+I LOSE, he said. ALL I HAVE IS FOUR ONES.
+
+He looked back into Granny's eyes for a moment. There was a blue glow in
+the depth of his eye-sockets. Maybe, for the merest fraction of a second,
+barely noticeable even to the closest observation, one winked off.
[Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
+# p. 67 (Harper Torch edition; as above, transcribed from some other edition)
%passage 2
-Ahahahahaha!
-Ahahahaha!
-Aahahaha!
-BEWARE!!!!!
-Yrs sincerely,
-The Opera Ghost
-'What sort of person,' said Salzella, 'sits down and /writes/ a maniacal
-laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of
-someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man.'
+The letter inside was on a sheet of the Opera House's own note paper.
+In neat, copperplate writing, it said:
+
+ Ahahahahaha! Ahahahaha! Aahahaha!
+ BEWARE!!!!!
+
+ Yrs sincerely
+ The Opera Ghost
+
+'What sort of person,' said Salzella patiently, 'sits down and /writes/ a
+maniacal laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A
+sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do
+that to a man.'
[Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
+# pp. 30-31 (Harper Torch edition)
%passage 3
Agnes had woken up one morning with the horrible realization that she'd
-been saddled with a lovely personality. It was the lack of choice that
-rankled. No one had asked her, before she was born, whether she wanted a
-lovely personality or whether she'd prefer, say, a miserable personality
-but a body that could take size 9 in dresses. Instead, people would take
-pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell
-for an attractive pair of kidneys.
+been saddled with a lovely personality. It was as simple as that. Oh,
+and very good hair.
+
+It wasn't so much the personality, it was the "but" people always added
+when they talked about it. /But she's got a lovely personality/, they
+said. It was the lack of choice that rankled. No one had asked her,
+before she was born, whether she wanted a lovely personality or whether
+she'd prefer, say, a miserable personality but a body that could take
+size nine in dresses. Instead, people would take pains to tell her that
+beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair
+of kidneys.
[Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
+# p. 258
%passage 4
'And what can I get you, officers?' she said.
-'Officers? Us? What makes you think we're watchment?'
-'He's got a helmet on,' Nanny pointed out.
-'Milit'ry chic,' Nobby said. 'It's just a fashion accessory. Actually, we
-are gentlemen of means and have nothing to do with the City Watch
-whatsoever.' 'Well, /gentlemen/, would you like some wine?'
-'Not while we on duty, t'anks', said the troll.
+
+'Officers? Us?' said the Count de Nobbes. 'What makes you think we're
+watchmen?'
+
+'He's got a helmet on,' Nanny pointed out. 'Also, he's got his badge
+pinned to his coat.'
+
+'I /told/ you to put it away!' Nobby hissed. He looked at Nanny and
+smiled uneasily. 'Milit'ry chic,' he said. 'It's just a fashion
+accessory. Actually, we are gentlemen of means and have nothing to do
+with the city Watch whatsoever.'
+
+'Well, /gentlemen/, would you like some wine?'
+
+'Not while we on duty, t'anks,' said the troll.
[Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
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