The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

by The Wit

  *

  ‘You always used to say I was wanton, when we was younger,’ said Nanny.

  ‘You was, of course,’ said Granny. ‘But you never used magic for it, did you?’

  ‘Din’t have to,’ said Nanny happily. ‘An off-the-shoulder dress did the trick most of the time.’

  ‘Right off the shoulder and on to the grass, as I recall,’ said Granny.

  *

  Every established kitchen has one ancient knife, its handle worn thin, its blade curved like a banana, and so inexplicably sharp that reaching into the drawer at night is like bobbing for apples in a piranha tank.

  *

  ‘Look at the three of you,’ Lily said. ‘The maiden, the mother and the crone.’

  ‘Who are you calling a maiden?’ said Nanny Ogg.

  ‘Who are you calling a mother?’ said Magrat.

  Granny Weatherwax glowered briefly like the person who has discovered that there is only one straw left and everyone else has drawn a long one.

  *

  ‘Don’t you talk to me about progress. Progress just means bad things happen faster.’

  *

  ‘How come you’re in the palace guard, Casanunda? All the rest of ‘em are six foot tall and you’re – of the shorter persuasion.’

  ‘I lied about my height, Mrs Ogg.’

  *

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Mistress Weatherwax,’ said Mrs Gogol.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Granny. ‘I don’t want you to hurt me either.’

  † Always in front of you in any queue, for a start.

  IN the beginning was the Word. And the Word was: ‘Hey, you!’

  For Brutha the novice is the Chosen One. He wants peace and justice and brotherly love.

  He also wants the Inquisition to stop torturing bin? now, please…

  Brother Preptil, the master of the music, had described Brutha’s voice as putting im in mind of a disappointed vulture arriving too late at the dead donkey.

  *

  There was something creepy about that boy [Brutha], Nhumrod thought. It was the way he looked at you when you were talking, as if he was listening.

  *

  ‘It’s a big bull,’ said the tortoise.

  ‘The very likeness of the Great God Om in one of his worldly incarnations!’ said Brutha proudly. ‘And you say you’re him?

  ‘I haven’t been well lately,’ said the tortoise.

  *

  ‘How should I know? I don’t know!’ lied the tortoise.

  ‘But you … you’re omnicognizant,’ said Brutha.

  ‘That doesn’t mean I know everything.’

  Brutha bit his lip. ‘Um. Yes. It does.’

  *

  Everyone in the city knew Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah, purveyor of suspiciously new holy relics, suspiciously old rancid sweetmeats on a stick, gritty figs, and long-past-their--sell-by dates.

  *

  ‘I – I do not know how to ride, my lord,’ said Brutha.

  ‘Any man can get on a mule,’ said Vorbis. ‘Often many times in a short distance.’

  *

  It was a small mule and Brutha had long legs; if he’d made the effort he could have remained standing and let the mule trot out from underneath.

  ‘My grandmother used to give me a thrashing every morning because I would certainly do something to deserve it during the day’ said Brutha.

  If you spend your whole time thinking about the universe, you tend to forget the less important bits of it. Like your pants.

  *

  People think that professional soldiers think a lot about fighting, but serious professional soldiers think a lot more about food and a warm place to sleep, because these are two things that are generally hard to get, whereas fighting tends to turn up all the time.

  *

  Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that’d happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn’t a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time …

  *

  No other library anywhere, for example, has a whole gallery of unwritten books - books that would have been written if the author hadn’t been eaten by an alligator around chapter 1, and so on. Atlases of imaginary places. Dictionaries of illusory words. Spotters’ guides to invisible things. Wild thesauri in the Lost Reading Room. A library so big that it distorts reality and has opened gateways to all other libraries, everywhere and everywhen …

  *

  ‘Prince Lasgere of Tsort asked me how he could become learned, especially since he hadn’t got any time for this reading business. I said to him, “There is no royal road to learning, sire,” and he said to me, “Bloody well build one or I shall have your legs chopped off. Use as many slaves as you like.” A refreshingly direct approach, I always thought. Not a man to mince words. People, yes. But not words.’

  *

  Gods are not very introspective. It has never been a survival trait. The ability to cajole, threaten and terrify has always worked well enough. When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow’s-point-of-view is seldom necessary.

  Which had led, across the multi-verse, to men and women of tremendous brilliance and empathy devoting their entire lives to the service of deities who couldn’t beat them at a quiet game of dominoes. For example, Sister Sestina of Quirm defied the wrath of a local king and walked unharmed across a bed of coals and propounded a philosophy of sensible ethics on behalf of a goddess whose only real interest was in hairstyles, and Brother Zephilite of Klatch left his vast estates and his family and spent his life ministering to the sick and poor on behalf of the invisible god F’rum, generally considered unable, should he have a backside, to find it with both hands, should he have hands. Gods never need to be very bright when there are humans around to be it for them.

  *

  Mountains rise and fall, and under them the Turtle swims onward. Men live and die, and the Turtle Moves. Empires grow and crumble, and the Turtle Moves. Gods come and go, and still the Turtle Moves. The Turtle Moves.

  *

  Words are the litmus paper of the mind. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word ‘commence’ in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say ‘Enter,’ don’t stop to pack.

  THE Fairies are back - but this time they don’t just want youir teeth…

  Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven are tip against real elves. It’s Midsummer Night.

  No time for dreaming…

  With full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris dancers and one orang-utan. And lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place.

  Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of housework in other people.

  *

  Lancre was so small that you couldn’t lie down without a passport.

  *

  WILLIAM SCROPE.

  ‘Yes?’

  IF YOU WOULD PLEASE STEP THIS WAY.

  ‘Are you a hunter?’

  I LIKE TO THINK I AM A PICKER-UP OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES.

  Death grinned hopefully. Scrope’s post-physical brow furrowed.

  ‘What? Like … sherry, custard … that sort of thing?’

  *

  ‘Someone got killed up here.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ moaned Nanny Ogg.

  ‘A tall man. He had one leg longer’n the other. And a beard. He was probably a hunter.’

  ‘How’d you know all that?’

  ‘I just trod on ’im.’

  *

  ‘Hope Magrat does all right as queen,’ said Nanny.

  ‘We taught her everything she knows,’ said Granny Weatherwax.

 
; ‘Yeah,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘D’you think … maybe … ?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘D’you think maybe we ought to have taught her everything we know?’

  *

  The thing about the Librarian was that no one noticed he was an orangutan any more, unless a visitor to the University happened to point it out. In which case someone would say, ‘Oh, yes. Some kind of magical accident, wasn’t it? Pretty sure it was something like that. One minute human, next minute an ape. Funny thing, really … can’t remember what he looked like before. I mean, he must have been human, I suppose. Always thought of him as an ape, really. It’s more him.’

  *

  Magrat normally wore a simple dress with not much underneath it except Magrat.

  *

  Nanny subtly breaks the news of a death:

  ‘Well, now,’ said Nanny, ‘you know the widow Scrope, lives over in Slice?’

  Quarney’s mouth opened.

  ‘She’s not a widow,’ he said. ‘She—’

  ‘Bet you half a dollar?’ said Nanny.

  *

  Esme’s skill at Borrowing unnerved Nanny Ogg. It was all very well entering the minds of animals and such, but too many witches had never come back. For several years Nanny had put out lumps of fat and bacon rind for a bluetit that she was sure was old Granny Postalute, who’d gone out Borrowing one day and never came back.

  *

  Granny Weatherwax had a feeling she was going to die. This was beginning to get on her nerves.

  *

  ‘I do apologize for this,’ said the very small highwayman. ‘I find myself a little short.’

  *

  The dwarf bowed and produced a slip of pasteboard from one grubby but lace-clad sleeve.

  ‘My card,’ he said.

  It read:

  ‘Are you really an outrageous liar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why are you trying to rob coaches, then?’

  ‘I am afraid I was waylaid by bandits.’

  ‘But it says here,’ said Ridcully ‘that you are a finest swordsman.’

  ‘I was outnumbered.’

  ‘How many of them were there?’

  ‘Three million.’

  *

  ‘You know,’ said Ponder, ‘this reminds me of that famous logical puzzle … There was this man, right, who had to choose between going through two doors, apparently, and the guard on one door always told the truth and the guard on the other door always told a lie, and the thing was, behind one door was certain death, and behind the other door was freedom, and he didn’t know which guard was which, and he could only ask them one question and so: what did he ask?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Casanunda, ‘I think I’ve worked it out. One question, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ponder, relieved.

  ‘And he can ask either guard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, in that case he goes up to the smallest guard and says, “Tell me which is the door to freedom if you don’t want to see the colour of your kidneys and incidentally I’m walking through it behind you, so if you’re trying for the Mr Clever Award just remember who’s going through it first” ‘

  ‘No, no, no!’

  ‘Sounds logical to me,’ said Ridcully. ‘Very good thinking.’

  ‘But you haven’t got a weapon!’

  Yes I have. I wrested it from the guard while he was considering the question,’ said Casanunda.

  *

  Ponder Stibbons tries to explain parallel universes to Ridcully:

  ‘Parallel universes, I said. Universes where things didn’t happen like—’ He hesitated. ‘Well, you know that girl?’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘The girl you wanted to marry?’

  ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘You were talking about her just after lunch.’

  ‘Was I? More fool me. Well, what about her?’

  ‘Well … in a way, you did marry her,’ said Ponder.

  Ridcully shook his head. ‘Nope. Pretty certain I didn’t. You remember that sort of thing.’

  ‘Ah, but not in this universe—’

  ‘You suggestin’ I nipped into some other universe to get married?’ said Ridcully.

  ‘No! I mean, you got married in that universe and not in this universe,’ said Ponder.

  ‘Did I? What? A proper ceremony and everything?’

  Yes!’

  ‘Hmm.’ Ridcully stroked his beard. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Certain, Archchancellor.’

  ‘My word! I never knew that.’

  Ponder felt he was getting somewhere.

  ‘So—’

  Yes?’

  ‘Why don’t I remember it?’

  Ponder had been ready for this.

  ‘Because the you in the other universe is different from the you here,’ he said. ‘It was a different you that got married. He’s probably settled down somewhere. He’s probably a great-grandad by now.’

  ‘He never writes, I know that,’ said Ridcully. ‘And the bastard never invited me to the wedding.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him.’

  ‘But he’s you!’

  ‘Is he? Huh! You’d think I’d think of me, wouldn’t you? What a bastard!’

  It wasn’t that Ridcully was stupid.

  Truly stupid wizards have the life expectancy of a glass hammer. He had quite a powerful intellect, but it was powerful like a locomotive, and ran on rails and was therefore almost impossible to steer.

  Shawn took a deep breath and leaned over the battlements.

  ‘Halt! Who Goes There?’ he said.

  ‘It’s me, Shawn. Your mum.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Mum. Hello, Mistress Weatherwax.’

  ‘Let us in, there’s a good boy.’

  ‘Friend or Foe?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s what I’ve got to say, Mum. It’s official. And then you’ve got to say Friend.’

  ‘I’m your mum.’

  You’ve got to do it properly, Mum,’ said Shawn, ‘otherwise what’s the point?’

  ‘It’s going to be Foe in a minute, my lad.’

  ‘Oooaaaww, Mum!’

  ‘Oh, all right. Friend, then.’

  ‘Yes, but you could just be saying that—’

  *

  A witch’s cottage is a very specific architectural item. It is not exactly built, but put together over the years as the areas of repair join up, like a sock made entirely of darns. The chimney twists like a corkscrew. The roof is thatch so old that small but flourishing trees are growing in it, the floors are switchbacks, it creaks at night like a tea clipper in a gale. If at least two walls aren’t shored up with balks of timber then it’s not a true witch’s cottage at all, but merely the home of some daft old bat who reads tea leaves and talks to her cat.

  *

  The bandit chief knocked on the coach door. The window slid down.

  ‘I wouldn’t like you to think of this as a robbery,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to think of it more as a colourful anecdote you might enjoy telling your grandchildren about.’

  A wizard’s staff poked out. The chieftain saw the knob on the end.

  ‘Now, then,’ he said, pleasantly. ‘I know the rules. Wizards aren’t allowed to use magic against civilians except in genuine life-threatening situa—’

  There was a burst of octarine light.

  ‘Actually, it’s not a rule,’ said Ridcully ‘It’s more a guideline.’

  *

  ‘I thought that sort of thing was, you know,’ the king grinned sickly, ‘folklore?’

  ‘Of course it’s folklore, you stupid man!’

  ‘I do happen to be king, you know,’ said Verence reproachfully.

  ‘You stupid king, your majesty.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Elves are beautiful. They’ve got style. Beauty. Grace.

  That’s what matters. If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastar
ds they are. Style. That’s what people remember.’

  ‘Nanny, would you like to be a bridesmaid?’

  ‘Not really, dear. Bit old for that sort of thing.’ Nanny hovered. ‘There isn’t anything you need to ask me, though, is there?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What with your mum being dead and you having no female relatives and everything …’

  Magrat still looked puzzled.

  ‘After the wedding, is what I’m hinting about,’ said Nanny.

  ‘Oh, that. No, most of that’s being done by a caterer.’

  *

  It wasn’t that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.

  There had been plenty of singers whose high notes could smash a glass, but Nanny’s high C could clean it.

  *

  ‘Swish city bastards.’

  ‘They don’t know what it’s like to be up to the armpit in a cow’s backside on a snowy night. Hah!’

  ‘And there ain’t one of ‘em that— what’re you talking about? You ain’t got a cow.’

  ‘No, but I know what it’s like.’

  *

  ‘What do we do with the mail?’ said Ridcully

  ‘I take the palace stuff, and we generally leave the sack hanging up on a nail outside the tavern so that people can help themselves,’ said Shawn.

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ said Ponder.

  ‘Don’t think so. It’s a strong nail,’ said Shawn.

  *

  ‘I remember years ago my granny telling me about Queen Amonia, well, I say queen, but she never was queen except for about three hours because of what I’m about to unfold, on account of them playing hide-and-seek at the wedding party and her hiding in a big heavy old chest in some attic and the lid slamming shut and no one finding her for seven months, by which time you could definitely say the wedding cake was getting a bit stale.’