Pratchett - Sourcery

* The furrow left by the fleeing gargoyles caused the Universitys head gardener to bite through his rake and led to the famous quotation: How do you get a lawn like this? You mows it and you rolls it for five hundred years and then a bunch of bastards walks across it.

* In most old libraries the books are chained to the shelves to prevent them being damaged by people. In the Library of Unseen University, of course, its more or less the other way about.

* At least, by anyone who wanted to wake up the same shape, or even the same species, as they went to bed.

* The vermine is a small black-and-white relative of the lemming, found in the cold Hublandish regions. Its skin is rare and highly valued, especially by the vermine itself; the selfish little bastard will do anything rather than let go of it.

* This was because Gritoller had swallowed the jewels for safe keeping.

* The Ankh-Morpork Merchants Guild publication Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises describes the area of Old Morpork known as The Shades as a folklorique network of old alleys and picturesque streets, wherre exitment and romans lurkes arounde everry corner and much may be heard the traditinal street cries of old time also the laughing visages of the denuizens as they goe about their business private. In other words, you have been warned.

* The study of genetics on the Disc had failed at an early stage, when wizards tried the experimental crossing of such well known subjects as fruit flies and sweet peas. Unfortunately they didnt quite grasp the fundamentals, and the resultant offspringa sort of green bean thing that buzzedled a short sad life before being eaten by a passing spider.

* The overwhelming majority of citizens being defined in this case as everyone not currently hanging upside down over a scorpion pit.

* Wizards tastes in the matter of puns are about the same as their taste in glittery objects.

* Of course, Ankh-Morporks citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure in any case. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed.

* No one ever had the courage to ask him what he did there.

* Or up, or obliquely. The layout of the Library of Unseen University was a topographical nightmare, the sheer presence of so much stored magic twisting dimensions and gravity into the kind of spaghetti that would make M. C. Escher go for a good lie down, or possibly sideways.

* The Hashishim, who derived their name from the vast quantities of hashish they consumed, were unique among vicious killers in being both deadly and, at the same time, inclined to giggle, groove to interesting patterns of light and shade on their terrible knife blades and, in extreme cases, fall over.

* Although, possibly, quicker. And only licensed to carry fourteen people.

* In a truly magical universe everything has its opposite. For example, theres anti-light. Thats not the same as darkness, because darkness is merely the absence of light. Anti-light is what you get if you pass through darkness and out the other side . On the same basis, a state of knurdness isnt like sobriety. By comparison, sobriety is like having a bath in cotton wool. Knurdness strips away all illusion, all the comforting pink fog in which people normally spend their lives, and lets them see and think clearly for the first time ever. Then, after theyve screamed a bit, they make sure they never get knurd again.

* For a description of the chimera we shall turn to Broomfogs famous bestiary Anima Unnaturale : It have thee legges of an mermade, the hair of an tortoise, the teeth of an fowel, and the winges of an snake. Of course, I have only my worde for it, the beast having the breathe of an furnace and the temperament of an rubber balloon in a hurricane.

* Of course, wizards often killed one another by ordinary, nonmagical means, but this was perfectly allowable and death by assassination was considered natural causes for a wizard.

* All right. But youve got the general idea.

* It was a Fullomyth, an invaluable aid for all whose business is with the arcane and hermetic. It contained lists of things that didnt exist and, in a very significant way, werent important. Some of its pages could only be read after midnight, or by strange and improbable illuminations. There were descriptions of underground constellations and wines as yet unfermented. For the really up-to-the-epoch occultist, who could afford the version bound in spider skin, there was even an insert showing the London Underground with the three stations they never dare show on the public maps.

* He always argued that he was.

* Very popular among gods, demi-gods, daemons and other supernatural creatures, who feel at home with questions like What is It all About? and Where will It all End?

* Although this was the only way in which they resembled the idols built, in response to ancient and unacknowledged memories, by children in snowy weather; it was extremely unlikely that this Ice Giant would be a small mound of grubby ice with a carrot in it by the morning.

* Which wisely decided not to fly again, was never claimed, and lived out the rest of its days as the carriage horse of an elderly lady. What War did about this is unrecorded; it is pretty certain that he got another one.

A Novel of Discworld

Many years ago I saw, in Bath, a very large American lady towing a huge tartan suitcase very fast on little rattly wheels which caught in the pavement cracks and generally gave it a life of its own. At that moment the Luggage was born. Many thanks to that lady and everyone else in places like Power Cable, Neb., who dont get nearly enough encouragement.

This book does not contain a map. Please feel free to draw your own.

There was no analogy for the way in which Great ATuin the world turtle moved against the galactic night. When you are ten thousand miles long, your shell pocked with meteor craters and frosted with comet ice, there is absolutely nothing you can realistically be like except yourself.

So Great ATuin swam slowly through the interstellar deeps like the largest turtle there has ever been, carrying on its carapace the four huge elephants that bore on their backs the vast, glittering waterfall-fringed circle of the Discworld, which exists either because of some impossible blip on the curve of probability or because the gods enjoy a joke as much as anyone.

More than most people, in fact.

Near the shores of the Circle Sea, in the ancient, sprawling city of Ankh-Morpork, on a velvet cushion on a ledge high up in the Unseen University, was a hat.

It was a good hat. It was a magnificent hat.

It was pointy, of course, with a wide floppy brim, but after disposing of these basic details the designer had really got down to business. There was gold lace on there, and pearls, and bands of purest vermine, and sparkling Ankhstones , and some incredibly tasteless sequins, anda dead giveaway, of coursea circle of octarines.

Since they werent in a strong magical field at the moment they werent glowing, and looked like rather inferior diamonds.

Spring had come to Ankh-Morpork. It wasnt immediately apparent, but there were signs that were obvious to the cognoscenti. For example, the scum on the river Ankh, that great wide slow waterway that served the double city as reservoir, sewer and frequent morgue, had turned a particularly iridescent green. The citys drunken rooftops sprouted mattresses and bolsters as the winter bedding was put out to air in the weak sunshine, and in the depths of musty cellars the beams twisted and groaned when their dry sap responded to the ancient call of root and forest. Birds nested among the gutters and eaves of Unseen University, although it was noticeable that however great the pressure on the nesting sites they never, ever, made nests in the invitingly open mouths of the gargoyles that lined the rooftops, much to the gargoyles disappointment.