I realized while thumbing through the entries on my Kindle today that I had bookmarked several passages from Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld offering, called "Unseen Academicals." Hope you enjoy the way he uses the language.
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MORE WIT AND WISDOM OF TERRY PRATCHETT
"There is a phrase 'neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring.' This thing was all of them, plus some other bits of beasts unknown to science or nightmare or even kebab."
"Smeems handled this quite well in the circumstances, which included being so deeply at sea with that sentence that barnacles would be attracted to his underwear."
"She wasn't ugly. She might be called homely, perhaps, but it was quite a nice home, clean and decent and with roses round the door and a welcome on the mat and an apple pie in the oven."
"And sometimes she baked him a banana pie, which was a kind act. The Librarian was not very familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you."
"The unofficial motto of the Lady Sybil Free Hospital was 'Not Everybody Dies.' "
"It has been said that crowds are stupid, but mostly they are simply confused, since as an eyewitness the average person is as reliable as a meringue lifejacket."
" 'Well said, miss,' he chuckled, as Glenda waited for the floor to open and swallow her. 'And I'm sure that remark came from the heart, because I suspect it could not have come from the head.' "
"She approached the door with the apprehension of one who is certain that the moment she sets foot inside she will be charged five dollars a minute for breathing and then be held upside down and have all her wealth removed with a hook."
"The truth of the matter was that Juliet would look good in a sack. Somehow, everything she wore fit perfectly. Glenda, on the other hand, never found anything good in her size and indeed seldom found anything in her size. In theory, something should fit, but all she ever found was facts, which are so unbecoming."
"But, it was a funny thing: every day something happened that was important enough to be on the front page of the newspaper. She'd never bought it and seen a little sign that said 'Not much happened yesterday, sorry about that.' And tomorrow, wonderful though that picture was, it would be wrapping up fish and chips and everyone would have forgotten about it."
" 'Hmmm,' said Ponder. And it was quite a solid hmmm, possibly one you could moor a small boat to."
[selected from Unseen Academicals, written by Terry Pratchett]
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Hey, I'll see you on Monday.
Mark
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WEB SITE of the WEEK: Okay, I got nuthin'. It's very late on a Friday, most of you won't get this until Saturday. Arrrgh. Sorry. I will say to watch for a special announcement on Monday, April 5.
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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so." (Lord Chesterfield)
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