Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’, believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’.
“You’ve known me since we was girls, right?” Granny interrupted. “Through thick and thin, good and bad?”
“Yes, of course, but -“
“And you never sank to sayin’ “I’m telling you this as a friend”, did you?”
Nanny shook her head. It was a telling point. No one even remotely friendly would say a thing like that.
“What’s empowerin’ about witchcraft anyway?” said Granny. “It’s a daft sort of a word.”
“Search me,” said Nanny. “I did start out in witchcraft to get boys, to tell you the truth.”
“Think I don’t know that?”
“What did you start out to get, Esme?”
Granny stopped, and looked up at the frosty sky and then down at the ground.
“Dunno,” she said, at last. “Even, I suppose.”
And that, Nanny thought, was that.
You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?… It’s all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they’re really good at. It’s all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It’s all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad plowmen instead. It’s all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when it’s even possible to find out. It’s all the people who never get to know what it is that they can really be. It’s all the wasted chances.
A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.
Witches preferred to cut enemies dead with a look. There was no sense in killing your enemy. How would she know you’d won?
Bloody hell this is perfect.
(With a tip of the hat to thestudentofcoffee, who reminded me of the passage)
You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.
Granny Weatherwax in Witches Abroad, by Terry Pratchett.
The world would be a better place if everyone grew up reading Terry Pratchett.
(via lostdollsclub)
When I have kids I’m going to read them Terry’s books as bedtime stories.
(via rosiethemage)
And Neil congratulated Terry on a line that Terry knew he hadn’t written, and Neil was certain that he hadn’t written it either. They both privately thought at some point the book had started to generate text on its own, but neither of them will actually admit this publicly for fear of being thought odd.
Good Omens, The Facts ~ Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (via daeneryscaffrey)
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Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now direct you to the SCP entry on the object known as Good Omens.
(via kaytara-art)
Lady Karasu 