Your favorite Pterry-isms (Discworld)

[Lumpy]

My two are: (1). the infamous travelers' complaint "Dire Rear" (2). A man known (and feared) as "Grevious Bodily" Harmon.

[Anaamika]

It's not just a Terry-ism, but that's where I got it - I now say all the time "Pull the other one, it's got bells on."
Living in the States as I do I get a lot of baffled looks.

[Der Trihs]

Knurd, the opposite of being drunk.

Splatters, the troll version of bouncers. Trolls use more force.

[Lightnin']

"Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

[silenus]

My absolute favorite isn't from the Disc, but it involves a Universal Character:

- "You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?"
- REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.


Otherwise, it has to be Nanny either singing the Hedgehog Song, or commenting on Granny about to land on someone like a ton of bricks.

[KneadToKnow]

Is that from Good Omens, silenus? It sounds very familiar.

[Rysto]

Getting an education is a little like getting a communicable sexual disease. It makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you the urge to pass it on to others.

[athelas]

Is that from Good Omens, silenus? It sounds very familiar.
Yep, Good Omens.

[Civil Guy]

On the predictive powers of tarot cards (and similar):

"Cardboard isn't very bright."

[Kythereia]

The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.

(from Guards! Guards!)

[jayjay]

From Maskerade, referring to Granny Weatherwax:

"People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people."

[Captain_C]

There are so many, but two I predominately use at work when I have to kick people off property:

"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS JUST US"
and
"Have you not heard of Rule One?!"

[glee]

The Patrician believed in Democracy - 'one man, one vote'.
The Patrician was that man and he had that vote.

[Der Trihs]

The Patrician believed in Democracy - 'one man, one vote'.
The Patrician was that man and he had that vote.I believe it's :

"Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote."

[lee]

Eldritch, which means oblong.

[Malacandra]

"He lit a match, the darkness blossomed into a ball of sulphurous white light, and the Librarian dropped on him like the descent of Man."

--Sconner unwisely tries to set fire to the Library of Unseen University, Sourcery.

[ftg]

Oook.

(It's all in the pronunciation.)

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

"The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people."

[Dunawake]

There is a neverending supply of these, but here's a few of my favorites :P


There was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite, for example, would count as gentrification.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)

FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC.
-- The motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

They say the heat and the flies here can drive a man insane. But you don't have to believe that, and nor does that bright mauve elephant that just cycled past.
-- (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)

"Give a man a fire and you'll warm him for a night. Set a man on fire and you'll warm him for the rest of his life."

[silenus]

"Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk." (FoC)



There was a roar like the scream of a camel who has just seen two bricks. (SM)

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC.
-- The motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

That one started out as: "Fabricati Diem, Pvncti Agvnt Celeriter". It was graven in stone, above the watch house. It means "Make the Day, the Moments Pass Quickly". It was King Veltrick's motto.

Time, and vandalism resulted in a truncating of the stone stela the motto was carved on, thus producing the shortened version you cite

:D

[flodnak]

Off the top of my head I can't remember which book, but it's about the Patrician's demand that the wizards at Unseen University pay their taxes like everybody else, at a rate of two hundred dollars per capita. "If per capita was a problem, de capita could be arranged."

[Der Trihs]

Off the top of my head I can't remember which book, but it's about the Patrician's demand that the wizards at Unseen University pay their taxes like everybody else, at a rate of two hundred dollars per capita. "If per capita was a problem, de capita could be arranged."And the wizard's response was something about how another Patrician had tried that once; if the Patrician liked, he could come the the basement and see him.

[Fionn]

"-ing!"

[Der Trihs]

"Bad spelling can be lethal. For example, the greedy Seriph of Al-Ybi was once cursed by a badly educated deity and for some days everything he touched turned to Glod, which happened to be the name of a small dwarf from a mountain community hundreds of miles away who found himself magically dragged to the kingdom and relentlessly duplicated. Some two thousand Glods later the spell wore off. These days, the people of Al-Ybi are renowned for being unusually short and bad-tempered. "

There was also something about a woman who could spin straw into Glod.

[silenus]

"The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed." (M)

"The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight." (E)

[Alessan]

"Don't meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian ones. They aren't very subtle."

[BrainGlutton]

From the first DW novel, The Colour of Magic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_of_Magic) (from memory, wording may be inexact): Rincewind on Twoflowers: "If chaos were lightning, he would be the man standing on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting, 'All gods are bastards!'"

Same novel:

RINCEWIND: I wasn't thinking of it! [i.e., of abandoning Twoflowers at the first opportunity after the Patrician has just made him personally responsible for the tourist's safety]

PATRICIAN (unnamed, could be Vetinari, could be his predecessor Snapcase): Really? Then, if I were you, I'd sue my face for slander.

[Wallenstein]

Humans trying to discuss complex theories - love, justice, happiness etc - with a language designed as a means of telling other apes where the ripe fruit is.

The falling angel meets the rising ape.

[maggenpye]

Sausage inna bun!

And; I'm cutting me own throat at that price.

[BrainGlutton]

"Granny was only happy when she was angry. In fact, it seemed to Nanny, she was only Granny Weatherwax when she was angry."

[athelas]

"Ankh-Morpork! Brawling city of a hundred thousand souls! And, as the Patrician privately observed, ten times that number of actual people."

I get good use of that one, with the numbers and places modified as necessary.

[BrainGlutton]

And the wizard's response was something about how another Patrician had tried that once; if the Patrician liked, he could come the the basement and see him.

From Going Postal: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Postal)

ARCHCHANCELLOR RIDCULLY: Oh, please sue the University! We've got a pond full of people who tried to sue the University!

[pprgrl]

"When in doubt, choose to live!"

and

"Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility."

are the two I live my life by.

"That sounded exactly like a cat trying to go to the lavatory through a sewn-up bum," still makes me snigger audibly every time I read it.

[Captain Carrot]

RINCEWIND: I wasn't thinking of it! [i.e., of abandoning Twoflowers at the first opportunity after the Patrician has just made him personally responsible for the tourist's safety]

PATRICIAN (unnamed, could be Vetinari, could be his predecessor Snapcase): Really? Then, if I were you, I'd sue my face for slander.
Nah, couldn't have been Snapcase. CMOT Dibbler was around in that book, with his career fairly well established, and I'm pretty sure that didn't happen until Vetinari came along. Also, that's much more of something that Vetinari would say.

Lobsang: And you will teach me everything?
Lu Tze: I don't know about 'everything.' I mean, I don't know much forensic mineralogy. But I will teach you all that I know which is useful for you to know, yes.

[Wile E]

"I meant," said Iplsore bitterly, "what is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?" Death thought about it. "CATS," he said eventually, "CATS ARE NICE."

[Der Trihs]

Quoted from memory :

"Rincewind turned the corner and came face to face with Death.

It had to be Death. No-one else went around with empty eye sockets, and the scythe over one shoulder was another clue."

[Leiko]

Carrot laughed. "You just said small delightful mining tool of a feminine nature!"

Cheery stared at Angua, who returned the stare blankly while mumbling, "Well, dwarfish is difficult if you haven't eaten gravel all your life..."

It took me several re-reads to get all of the humor in this- somehow I missed the gender joke.

[Leiko]

Missed the edit window while typing the edits: I meant to say that was my current favorite.

But my favorite, favorite, is probably, "A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read."

And my favorite longer quote is:

"'You Say To People "Throw Off Your Chains" And They Make New Chains For Themselves?'
'Seems to be a major human activity, yes.'
Dorfl rumbled as he thought about this. 'Yes,' he said eventually. 'I Can See Why. Freedom Is Like Having The Top Of Your Head Opened Up.'
'I'll have to take your word for that, Constable.'"

[Mangetout]

"Give a man a fire and you'll warm him for a night. Set a man on fire and you'll warm him for the rest of his life."That one's my favourite.

[Paladud]

The extended Kubla Khan joke in Sourcery. It's one of my favorite poems and I was howling to tears at a bus stop when I read it. People looked at me funny.

[MrDibble]

Million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten.

[Der Trihs]

I can't find the exact quote, so this is from memory ( so I'm sure I'm butchering it ). "If you are ever held under the threat of death, pray it is by an evil man. An evil man will humiliate and torment you in order to prove his superiority, which gives you time to escape or be rescued. A good man will kill you with barely a word."

And later on Carrot kills the evil man in question, with barely a word. Full circle.

[si_blakely]

I can't find the exact quote, so this is from memory ( so I'm sure I'm butchering it ). "If you are ever held under the threat of death, pray it is by an evil man. An evil man will humiliate and torment you in order to prove his superiority, which gives you time to escape or be rescued. A good man will kill you with barely a word."

And later on Carrot kills the evil man in question, with barely a word. Full circle.and also from Men at Arms (paraphrased from memory)

Anyone can pull a sword from a stone. It's the man who puts the sword in the stone in the first place that you have to worry about.


and when Carrot kills the above evil man, he shoves the sword through his chest and deep into a granite column...

Si

[Small Clanger]

Probably because of Quantum*.






* explains almost anything

[Telperien]

"I smote him mightily!"

In certain conversations I've had of late, I find myself easily able to paraphrase Casanunda's words. The fact that my interlocutor never fails to get the reference is merely a bonus.

[hotflungwok]

"I sweat so much I'm going to have to change my vest any day now!"

It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, 'Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!' or 'Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!'

[BrainGlutton]

The extended Kubla Khan joke in Sourcery. It's one of my favorite poems and I was howling to tears at a bus stop when I read it. People looked at me funny.

"Kubla Khan"? I thought it was about Omar Khayyam's "Rubaiyat"!

[Malacandra]

"Kubla Khan"? I thought it was about Omar Khayyam's "Rubaiyat"!

There are references to both - there's the book-of-verses, wilderness-is-paradise-enow business from the Ruba'iya't but also the twice-five-miles something-or-other from Kubla Khan.

[Boulter's Canary]

DROP THE SCYTHE, AND TURN AROUND SLOWLY. - DEATH goes all Clint Eastwood (Reaper Man)

......WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. - DEATH, again. Reaper Man again

[kelly5078]

Millenium hand and shrimp!

[jayjay]

Millenium hand and shrimp!

Buggerit!

[lisacurl]

"I smote him mightily!"

In certain conversations I've had of late, I find myself easily able to paraphrase Casanunda's words. The fact that my interlocutor never fails to get the reference is merely a bonus.Maybe because it was Mightily Oats in Carpe Jugulum who said that. :cool:

I always enjoy the references to Granny Weatherwax "happening to" someone.

"There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do." - Small Gods

[Telperien]

Maybe because it was Mightily Oats in Carpe Jugulum who said that. :cool:

I always enjoy the references to Granny Weatherwax "happening to" someone.

"There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do." - Small Gods

Not everyone gets to live up to their name that way. :D