#
#
#
-%title Going Postal (1)
+%title Going Postal (13)
%passage 1
+What was magic, after all, but something that happened at the snap of
+a finger? Where was the magic in that? It was mumbled words and weird
+drawings in old books and in the wrong hands it was dangerous as hell,
+but not one half as dangerous as it could be in the right hands.
-What was magic, after all, but something that happened at the
-snap of a finger? Where was the magic in that? It was mumbled
-words and weird drawings in old books and in the wrong hands it
-was dangerous as hell, but not one half as dangerous as it could
-be in the right hands.
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 5 (Harper Torch edition)
+%passage 2
+They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates
+a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably
+concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is
+going to be hanged.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 18
+%passage 3
+There is a saying, "You can't fool an honest man," which is much quoted
+by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. Moist
+never tried it, knowingly anyway. If you did fool an honest man, he
+tended to complain to the local Watch, and these days they were harder
+to buy off. Fooling dishonest men was a lot safer, and somehow, more
+sporting. And, of course, there were so many more of them. You hardly
+had to aim.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 47 (passage starts mid-paragraph;
+# italics because it's Moist von Lipwig's internal monolog)
+%passage 4
+/What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch
+of government? Apart from, say, the average voter./
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 137
+%passage 5
+Now he could see the mysterious order clearly. They were robed, of course,
+because you couldn't have a secret order without robes. They had pushed
+the hoods back now, and each man(1) was wearing a peaked cap with a bird
+skeleton wired to it.
+
+(1) Women are always significantly underrepresented in secret orders.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 184 ('Tubso' and 'Bissonomy' are accurate)
+%passage 6
+Just below the dome, staring down from their niches, were statues of the
+Virtues: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, Tubso, Bissonomy,(1)
+and Fortitude.
+
+(1) Many cultures practice neither of these in the hustle and bustle of
+the modern world, because no one can remember what they are.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp. 249-250 (Moist and Miss Dearheart are in a fancy restaurant)
+%passage 7
+She froze, staring over his shoulder. He saw her right hand scrabble
+frantically among the cutlery and grab a knife.
+
+"That bastard has just walked into the place!" she hissed. "Reacher Gilt!
+I'll just kill him and join you for the pudding..."
+
+"You can't do that!" hissed Moist.
+
+"Oh? Why not?"
+
+"You're using the wrong knife! That's for the fish! You'll get into
+trouble!"
+
+She glared at him, but her hand relaxed, and something like a smile
+appeared on her face.
+
+"They don't have a knife for stabbing rich, murdering bastards?" she said.
+
+"They bring it to the table when you order one," said Moist urgently.
+"Look, this isn't the Drum, they don't just throw the body into the river!
+They'll call the Watch! Get a grip. Not on a knife! And get ready to
+run."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I forged his signature on Grand Trunk notepaper to get us in
+here, that's why."
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# pp 260-261 (Mr. Groat: elderly postal employee recently attacked in
+# the palacial but severely dilapidated post office;
+# "his imagination": Moist's; "him": Mr. Groat; "he": Moist)
+%passage 8
+The vision of Mr. Groat's chest kept bumping insistently against his
+imagination. It looked as though something with claws had taken a swipe
+at him, and only the thick uniform coat prevented him from being opened
+like a clam. But that didn't sound like a vampire. They weren't messy
+like that. It was a waste of good food.
+
+Nevertheless, he picked up a piece of smashed chair. It had splintered
+nicely. And the nice thing about a stake through the heart was that it
+also worked on non-vampires.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 262 (Stanley, a young postal employee who collects pins, recently
+# fought off /something/ using a bag of pins as a weapon)
+# [this passage doesn't have a very satisfactory ending...]
+%passage 9
+You probably couldn't /kill/ a vampire with pins...
+
+And after a thought like that is when you realize that however hard you
+try to look behind you, there's a behind you, behind you, where you aren't
+looking. Moist flung his back to the cold stone wall where he slithered
+along it until he ran out of wall and acquired a doorframe.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+#p. 278 ('thoughted' and 'thoughting' are accurate)
+%passage 10
+"Oh, Mr. Lipwig!"
+
+It is not often that a wailing woman rushes into a room and throws herself
+at a man. It had never happened to Moist before. Now it happened, and it
+seemed such a waste that the woman was Miss Maccalariat.
+
+She tottered forward and clung to the startled Moist, tears streaming down
+her face.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Lipwig!" she wailed. "Oh, Mr. Lipwig!"
+
+Moist reeled under her weight. She was dragging at his collar so hard
+that he was likely to end up on the floor, and the thought of being found
+on the floor with Miss Maccalariat was--well, a thought that just couldn't
+be thoughted. The head would explode before thoughting it.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+#p. 315
+%passage 11
+Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same
+crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 326 (homage to "To Have and Have Not"; Lauren Bacall's character says
+# to Humphrey Bogart's character, "You know how to whistle, don't
+# you Steve? Just put your lips together and--blow."
+# Miss Dearheart's slight pause seems better placed...)
+%passage 12
+Miss Dearheart stubbed out her cigarette. "Go up there tonight, Mr. Lipwig.
+Get yourself a little bit closer to heaven. And then get down on your
+knees and pray. You know how to pray, don't you? You just put your hands
+together--and hope."
+
+ [Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
+%e passage
+# p. 333 ('crackers' have been sending and receiving clandestine clacks
+# messages without owners/operators of the clacks network noticing)
+%passage 13
+It was a little like stealing. It was exactly like stealing. It was, in
+fact, stealing. But there was no law against it, because no one knew the
+crime existed, so is it really stealing if what's stolen isn't missed?
+And is it stealing if you're stealing from thieves? Anyway, all property
+is theft, except mine.
[Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett]
%e passage
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