It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. It has evolved and grown beyond just a mere collection of books, and into a realm that commands as rabid — if not more, and politely so — a fan base that the Harry Potter series. It’s been around longer, requires no particular reading order to enjoy, and boasts such a wide variety of amusing characters that while you may not like all of them, I guarantee you’ll find a quite a number of them that you do (and generally, they character subsets switch around from book to book so you’re not inundated with a bazillion characters at once). And having just said that you can just pick up at any book and read, it’s nice to start at the beginning and work your way through, as it’s nice to watch the characters evolve and become quite well rounded indeed.
Been re-reading a few of the earlier books, very purposefully, to gain a sense on how far some of the characters come in their growth. Stumbled across a few quotes (of many) that struck me as worth repeating. The first is from Granny Weatherwax in Equal Rites, and while short, speaks volumes and mirrors a small splinter of my personal philosophy:
“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.“
The second is from Reaper Man, and made me giggle for about a minute solid, while riding a recumbent bike in the gym, surrounded by sweaty people who seemed to have left their sense of humor in their lockers. The context you need to understand this quote is this: it is between two wizards on the staff of Unseen University (a college of sorts for wizards of the stuffy, elitist, six-meal-a-day and do not much else type), and the Librarian is an orangutan who once was a human, was changed by an unfortunate accident, and refuses to be changed back as it suits his particular vocation. He also communicates (quite clearly somehow) with a vocabulary that mainly consists of the word “oook“.
“Oook.”
“You? We can’t take you,” said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian. “You don’t know a thing about guerrilla warfare.”
“Oook!” said the Librarian, and made a surprisingly comprehensive gesture to indicate that, on the other hand, what he didn’t know about orangutan warfare could be written on the very small pounded up remains of, for example, the Dean.
And, as a final, completely unrelated note, THIS must be destroyed before it can reach the children! Seriously man, it’s freaking me out.