Terry Waite Quotes

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

Folks want to glow, to leave their worries and dead skin behind.

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...

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

I want to push the fast-forward button until I get back to happy.

Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out.

Men cheat. They lie. They love porn. The don't respect you and don't care if they hurt you. It's the fucking breaks. Women divorce 'em 'cause we can't tame 'em or train 'em or control 'em like we do household pets. End of story.

Inside Every Living Person is a Dead Person Waiting to Get Out…

I was tired of chasing ghosts, hollow men who were outside my comfort zone, men who had nothing to give me except a rush. It was all I asked for, and all I ever got.

No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

What I do know is sometimes we love the wrong people and sometimes we marry them.

People are content to wait a long time for salvation, but expect dinner to turn up within the hour.

A bad hunter chases, a good hunter waits.

Several times he had to flatten himself against the shelves as a thesaurus thundered by. He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small slim volumes of literary criticism.

Look, as my mama always said, 'One monkey don't stop no show.

Who really knew what evil lurked in the heart of men? ME. Who knew what sane men were capable of? STILL ME, I’M AFRAID. Vimes glanced at the door of the last room. No, he wasn’t going in there again. No wonder it stank here. YOU CAN’T HEAR ME, CAN YOU? OH. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT, said Death, and waited.

It's amazing how good governments are, given their track records in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters. One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarrassed to talk about it. It's not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be abductees. Some have been in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops. The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one - who is big, hairy, and has very large feet. The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.

Moist waited. Lord Vetinari could outstare a statue and make even a statue start to feel nervous and confess. Moist's counter was a fetching grin, which he knew annoyed Vetinari beyond measure, and there was absolute silence in the Oblong Office while blank stare and cheery grin battled it out for supremacy in some other dimension.

This was not the time to say “I don’t know.” The brothers had begging, hungry looks, like dogs waiting to be fed. They wanted an answer. It would be nice if it was the right answer, but if it couldn’t be, then any answer would do, because then we would stop being worried...and then his mind caught alight. That’s what the gods are! An answer that will do! Because there’s food to be caught and babies to be born and life to be lived and so there is no time for big, complicated, and worrying answers! Please give us a simple answer, so that we don’t have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don’t fit the way we want the world to be.

It is in the nature of the universe that the person who always keeps you waiting ten minutes will, on the day you are ten minutes tardy, have been ready ten minutes early and will make a point of not mentioning this.

Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: "Kings. What a good idea." Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.

You've been killing me inside and I don't want to die like this.

Back then I confused passions and orgasms with love. It look me years to realize the two weren't synonymous.

Fantasy is escapism, but wait... Why is this wrong? What are you escaping from, and where are you escaping to? Is the story opening windows or slamming doors? The British author G.K. Chesterton summarized the role of fantasy very well. He said its purpose was to take the everyday, commonplace world and lift it up and turn it around and show it to us from a different perspective, so that once again we see it for the first time and realize how marvelous it is. Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that make us human.

I'm not trying to be a middle aged centerfold, I just want to look at myself naked and not be disgusted.

The best rush in the world is getting something at 80 percent off.

At least be a nice lesbian or you're going to give the rest a bad rap.

I don't care if he never becomes my boyfriend or my husband, i just want him to be legitimate.

We never thought some guy would deliberately fill our hearts with brown sugar and then pour hot water all over it.

We get divorce, we get conned, someone we love dies, or we can't find anybody to love us or somebody breaks our heart and we realize this fairy tale ain't fair. So we suffer.

I hope you meet somebody and get married and then they fucking disappoint you and you have to go through a divorce, and then maybe you'll get it.

Our job is to stand up for our beliefs, cling to them no matter what, and wait for our redemption. Jesus will not let us down.

You don't have to chase around after creatures, Pismire had said. You watch them for long enough, and then you'll find the place to wait and they'll come to you. There's nearly always a better way of doing something.

I had been on a whole lot of folks' prayer lists and God had known for years my address was still 111 Unlucky-in-LOve-Avenue.

It was the sort of smile that lies on sandbanks waiting for incautious swimmers.

I been saying it for years: church is full of sneaky men posing as honest souls, and they are perpetuators our here looking for women just like you, with giant holes in your hearts, and they can smell when you got a good job and when you lonely as hell.

You couldn’t put off the inevitable. Because sooner or later, you reached the place when the inevitable just went and waited.

There should be a word for the microscopic spark of hope that you dare not entertain in case the mere act of acknowledging it will cause it to vanish, like trying to look at a photon. You can only sidle up to it, lookong past it, walking past it, waiting for it to get big enough to face the world

Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. And he'd give up on ecology...Then he'd tried believe in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he'd innocently started reading books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what or even if it could theoretically exist.

That's why your lot in life isn't fate. I don't have any say in much of my life, but I make whatever choices I can make in my own rational best interest. It's my choice to fix those stairs and make the place I live a little better instead of whining and waiting and hoping for someone else to do something for me. I have pride that I know how to do that for myself.

Now, I've been known to be attractive on special occasions, and I do my best to project as much beauty as I can muster from deep inside, though I often fail.

He waited patiently until the uproar had died away. It was amazing, he thought, how people would argue against figures on no better basis than ‘they must be wrong’.

I've got tons of irreplaceable information inside the soul of this computer.

Their young live were over, too, except they had to die everyday while still breathing.

Gay is the new straight, in case you haven't noticed.

It’s not that marriage itself is bad; it’s the people we marry who give it a bad name.

Okay, so I lied about my age. Everybody does.

Because after my marriage fell apart I felt like an empty parking space, and James just pulled into it.

What we consume now is not objects or events, but our experience of them. Just as we never need to leave our cars, so we never need to leave our own skulls. The experience is already out there, as ready-made as a pizza, as bluntly objective as a boulder, and all we need to do is receive it. It is as though there is an experience hanging in the air, waiting for a human subject to come alone and have it. Niagara Falls, Dublin Castle and the Great Wall of China do our experiencing for us. They come ready-interpreted, thus saving us a lot of inconvenient labour. What matters is not the place itself but the act of consuming it. We buy an experience like we pick up a T-shirt.

The press waited. It looked now like a great big beast. Soon he’d throw a lot of words into it. And in a few hours it would be hungry again, as if those words had never happened. You could feed it, but you could never fill it up.

Keep your vision all-inclusive, never allowing it to lock on any one thing...look everywhere at once, see nothing to the exclusion of all else---don't allow the enemy to direct your vision, or you will see what he wishes you to see. He will then come at you as you become bewildered, looking for his attack, and you will lose.
Instead, your vision must open to all there is, never settling, even when cutting. Know your enemy's moves by instinct, not waiting to see them. To dance with death meant to know the enemy's sword and its speed without waiting to see it. Dancing with death meant being one with the enemy, without looking fixedly, so that you could kill him. Dancing with death meant being committed to killing, committed with your heart and soul.

But I thought she thought he was just a big pile of jobbies?” he said. “I seen her oout walkin’, an’ when he comes ridin’ past, she sticks her nose in th’ air and looks the other wa’. In fact, sometimes I seen her wait aroound a full five-and-twenty minutes for him tae come past, just so’s she can do that.

Death turned to leave the room, but stopped when Hex began to write furiously. He went back and looked at the emerging paper. +++ Dear Hogfather, For Hogswatch I Want OH, NO. YOU CAN'T WRITE LETT... Death paused, and then said, YOU CAN, CAN'T YOU. +++ Yes. I Am Entitled +++ Death waited until the pen had stopped, and picked up the paper. BUT YOU ARE A MACHINE. THINGS HAVE NO DESIRES. A DOORKNOB WANTS NOTHING, EVEN THOUGH IT IS A COMPLEX MACHINE. +++ All Things Strive +++ YOU HAVE A POINT, said Death. He thought of tiny red petals in the black depths, and read to the end of the list. I DON'T KNOW WHAT MOST OF THESE THINGS ARE. I DON'T THINK THE SACK WILL, EITHER. +++ I Regret This +++ BUT WE WILL DO THE BEST WE CAN, said Death. FRANKLY, I SHALL BE CLAD WHEN TONIGHT'S OVER. IT'S MUCH HARDER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE. He rummaged in his sack. LET ME SEE... HOW OLD ARE YOU?

And still the storm approaches. And there's nothing I can do. So I wait and watch and feel his breath against my face, cool and brave. His salt licks my skin, his promise brushes my hair. His fury drives the wind to touch my cheek and whisper something I can't hear. I think he loves me. I think he comes to see me. I am young. I will learn

Newton Pulsifer had never...as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. .... Then he'd tried believing in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he'd innocently started reading new books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist. To Newt's straightforward mind this was intolerable.

apparently time passed slowly when you were waiting for the end of the world.

If Ruby had learned anything in Holy Wood, it was that there was no use in waiting around for Mr. Right to hit you with a brick. You had to make your own bricks.

As I write this, I am still waiting for Steve to walk through the door.

I'm the only one who can stop me.. I'm the one who's been sitting at the stoplight all these years, waiting for the light to turn green.

The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while I was waiting, it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more fun,

Let me begin with a heartfelt confession. I admit it. I am a biblioholic, one who loves books and whose life would seem incomplete without them. I am an addict, with a compulsive need to stop by nearly any bookstore I pass in order to get my fix. Books are an essential part of my life, the place where I have spent many unforgettable moments. For me, reading is one of the most enjoyable ways to pass a rainy afternoon or a leisurely summer day. I crave the knowledge and insights that truly great books bring into my life and can spend transported hours scouring used book stores for volumes which "I simply must have". I love the smell and feel of well-loved books and the look of a bookcase full of books waiting to be taken down and read.

She waited with Billy Slick while Carrot went on the errand, and for something to say, she said, ‘Billy Slick doesn’t sound much like a goblin name?’ Billy made a face. ‘Too right! Granny calls me Of the Wind Regretfully Blown. What kind of name is that, I ask you? Who’s going to take you seriously with a name like that? This is modern times, right?’ He looked at her defiantly, and she thought: and so one at a time we all become human – human werewolves, human dwarfs, human trolls... the melting pot melts in one direction only, and so we make progress.

The shots left a hard ringing sound within the closeness of the brick walls. Terry held the pistol at arm's length on a level with his eyes--the Russian Tokarev resembling an old-model Colt .45, big and heavy--and made the sign of the cross with it over the dead. He said, "Rest in peace, motherfuckers," turned, and walked out of the beer lady's house to wait at the side of the road.

They're bored with their boring husbands who are workaholics like my dad. They're bored with their boring lives, sick of us kids and all this puberty and rebelling, so they pop pills all day long and shop and watch the soaps, and then when it all starts to fall apart they realize they just want to be happy again, so they go to rehab to clean up their act and then start fresh. Can you relate?

Oh dear, here were go again, thought Vimes. Why did I wait until I was married to become strangely attractive to powerful women? Why didn’t it happen to me when I was sixteen? I could have done with it then. He

He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small slim volumes of literary criticism.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it. There

The future held its breath, waiting for Rincewind to walk away. He didn’t do this for three reasons. One was alcohol.

And wait for the bus in grey drizzle, arms folded tight around myself, shivering against cold that falls from the sky and sinks deep in my bones.

The forces of darkness must be beaten. You seem to be under a misapprehension. The point is not to avoid the war, it is to win it. We have been waiting a long time, Aziraphale.

Olivia's heart pittered. A blank page. A pen in hand. Was there anything as exciting? The endless possibilities, the potential for beauty, even genius, waiting for that breath of life.

There’s a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork, greatest of Discworld cities. At least, there’s a saying that there’s a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. And it’s wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people just walk along them the wrong way. Poets long ago gave up trying to describe the city. Now the more cunning ones try to excuse it. They say, well, maybe it is smelly, maybe it is overcrowded, maybe it is a bit like Hell would be if they shut the fires off and stabled a herd of incontinent cows there for a year, but you must admit that it is full of sheer, vibrant, dynamic life. And this is true, even though it is poets that are saying it. But people who aren't poets say, so what? Mattresses tend to be full of life too, and no one writes odes to them. Citizens hate living there and, if they have to move away on business or adventure or, more usually, until some statute of limitations runs out, can’t wait to get back so they can enjoy hating living there some more. They put stickers on the backs of their carts saying "Anhk-Morpork—Loathe It or Leave It.

Coleridge wrote a poem called ‘The Eolian Harp,’ in which he explored the notion of music slumbering on its instrument. It's a gorgeous poem! It moves through thoughts and moods of the soul as if we're all but harps waiting for a breeze to pass through us to animate us. I feel the same way about art: that it is something that on many levels colonises you, gets inside you and changes you from the inside out. I find that happens with books, too. After I’ve read a book, for a couple of days afterwards I think in the patterns of the book’s writing, because the act of reading is an act of organising your own thought process. If you are reading someone else’s writing, you are having to organise your perception along someone else’s structure. So if I read a book by Terry Pratchett, a few days later there is still a little Terry Pratchettness to my thoughts. When I read something by Catherynne Valente, for quite a few days there is a kind of ‘jewelled’ quality to my thoughts. To read a book is to let someone else reach inside me and reorganise me. As a writer, I find it very difficult to start writing immediately after having read another writer's book. I have to digest it first, and let the influence pass…

The Librarian swung on. It was slow progress, because there were things he wasn't keen on meeting. Creatures evolved to fill every niche in the environment, and some of those in the dusty immensity of L-space were best avoided. They were much more unusual than ordinary unusual creatures. Usually he could forewarn himself by keeping a careful eye on the kickstool crabs that grazed harmlessly on the dust. When they were spooked, it was time to hide. Several times he had to flatten himself against the shelves as a thesaurus thundered by. He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small literary criticism. And there were other things, things which he hurried away from and tried not to look hard at... And you had to avoid cliches at all costs.

I want you to read ‘God Sees the Truth, but Waits,’ ” said Mother. “Tolstoy writes about a man, wrongly accused of a murder, who spends the rest of his life in a prison camp. Twenty-six years later, as a convict in Siberia, he meets the true murderer and has an opportunity to free himself, but chooses not to. His longing for home leaves him and he dies.” I ask Mother why this story matters to her. “Each of us must face our own Siberia,” she says. “We must come to peace within our own isolation. No one can rescue us. My cancer is my Siberia.” Suddenly, two white birds about the size of finches, dart in front of us and land on the snow.

Like sheep which, having been driven to a pasture, can now spread out at their leisure, the clouds began to drift. Afternoon sunlight sliced through into the still waters. The boomerang hung in the sky, and the boy thought he would have to find a new word for the way the colours glowed. In the meantime, he looked down at the water and tried out the word he'd been taught by his grandfather, who'd been taught it by his grandfather, and which had been kept for thousands of years for when it would been needed. It meant the smell after rain. It had, he thought, been well worth waiting for.

Currently, it was leading him through a neighborhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you'd bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and garbage were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality, and the graffiti was close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.

It's the first day of the Kingdom's centennial celebration, the day of the Grease Games. Today a new mutant is created, born into a new life. The pressure to win weighs heavily on Tif's shoulders, but she must stay focused. Her eyes are peeled while she waits for the announcer's arrival.

I stomped down the hallway, twisted the latch on the front door, and yanked it open. ‘Are you… “Ozzy Zig”?’ said Guy Fawkes, in a thick Brummie accent. ‘Who wants to know?’ I said, folding my arms. ‘Terry Butler,’ he said. ‘I saw your ad.’ That was exactly what I’d hoped he was going to say. Truth was, I’d been waiting a long time for this moment. I’d dreamed about it. I’d fantasised about it. I’d had conversations with myself on the shitter about it. One day, I thought, people might write newspaper articles about my ad in the window of Ringway Music, saying it was the turning point in the life of John Michael Osbourne, ex-car horn tuner. ‘Tell me, Mr Osbourne,’ I’d be asked by Robin Day on the BBC, ‘when you were growing up in Aston, did you ever think that a simple advert in a music shop window would lead to you becoming the fifth member of the Beatles, and your sister Iris getting married to Paul McCartney?’ And I’d answer, ‘Never in a million years, Robin, never in a million years.’ It was a f**king awesome ad.

...Agnes Nutter's death, which which more or less marked the end of the serious witch-hunting craze in England. A howling mob, reduced to utter fury by her habit of going around being intelligent and curing people, arrived at her house one April evening to find her sitting with her coat on waiting for them.

That would have to be important. How fast did a forest’s heart beat? Once a year, maybe. Yes, that sounded about right. Out there the forest was waiting for the brighter sun and longer days that would pump a million gallons of sap several hundred feet into the sky in one great systolic thump too big and loud to be heard.

The previous governess had used various monsters and bogeymen as a form of discipline. There was always something waiting to eat or carry off bad boys and girls for crimes like stuttering or defiantly and aggravatingly persisting in writing with their left hand. There was always a Scissor Man waiting for a little girl who sucked her thumb, always a bogeyman in the cellar. Of such bricks is the innocence of childhood constructed. Susan’s attempts at getting them to disbelieve in the things only caused the problems to get worse. Twyla had started to wet the bed. This may have been a crude form of defense against the terrible clawed creature that she was certain lived under it. Susan had found out about this one the first night, when the child had woken up crying because of a bogeyman in the closet. She’d sighed and gone to have a look. She’d been so angry that she’d pulled it out, hit it over the head with the nursery poker, dislocated its shoulder as a means of emphasis and kicked it out of the back door. The children refused to disbelieve in the monsters because, frankly, they knew damn well the things were there. But she’d found that they could, very firmly, also believe in the poker. Now she sat down on a bench and read a book. She made a point of taking the children, every day, somewhere where they could meet others of the same age. If they got the hang of the playground, she thought, adult life would hold no fears. Besides, it was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying. There were lessons later on. These were going a lot better now she’d got rid of the reading books about bouncy balls and dogs called Spot. She’d got Gawain on to the military campaigns of General Tacticus, which were suitably bloodthirsty but, more importantly, considered too difficult for a child. As a result his vocabulary was doubling every week and he could already use words like “disemboweled” in everyday conversation. After all, what was the point of teaching children to be children? They were naturally good at it.

Silence is another element we find in classic fairy tales — girls muted by magic or sworn to silence in order to break enchantment. In "The Wild Swans," a princess is imprisoned by her stepmother, rolled in filth, then banished from home (as her older brothers had been before her). She goes in search of her missing brothers, discovers that they've been turned into swans, whereupon the young girl vows to find a way to break the spell. A mysterious woman comes to her in a dream and tells her what to do: 'Pick the nettles that grow in graveyards, crush and spin them into thread, then weave them into coats and throw them over your brothers' backs.' The nettles burn and blister, yet she never falters: picking, spinning, weaving, working with wounded, crippled hands, determined to save her brothers. All this time she's silent. 'You must not speak,' the dream woman has warned, 'for a single world will be like a knife plunged into your brothers' hearts.' You must not speak. That's what my stepfather said: don't speak, don't cry, don't tell. That's what my mother said as well, as we sat in hospital waiting rooms -- and I obeyed, as did my brothers. We sat as still and silent as stone while my mother spun false tales to explain each break and bruise and burn. Our family moved just often enough that her stories were fresh and plausible; each new doctor believed her, and chided us children to be more careful. I never contradicted those tales. I wouldn't have dared, or wanted to. They'd send me into foster care. They'd send my young brothers away. And so we sat, and the unspoken truth was as sharp as the point of a knife.

A figure barred their way. It hadn’t been there a moment ago but it looked permanent now. It seemed to have been made of snow, three balls of snow piled on one another. It had black dots for eyes. A semi-circle of more dots formed the semblance of a mouth. There was a carrot for the nose. And, for the arms, two twigs. At this distance, anyway. One of them was holding a curved stick. A raven wearing a damp piece of red paper landed on one arm. ‘Bob bob bob?’ it suggested. ‘Merry Solstice? Tweetie tweet? What are you waiting for? Hogswatch?’ The dogs backed away. The snow broke off the snowman in chunks, revealing a gaunt figure in a flapping black robe. Death spat out the carrot. HO. HO. HO.

Someone very clever—certainly someone much cleverer than whoever had trained that imp—must have made the clock for the Partrician’s waiting room. It went tick-tock like any other clock. But somehow, and against all usual horological practice, the tick and the tock were irregular. Tick tock tick…and then the merest fraction of a second longer before…tock tick tock…and then a tick a fraction of a second earlier than the mind’s ear was now prepared for. The effect was enough, after ten minutes, to reduce the thinking processes of even the best-prepared to a sort of porridge. The Patrician must have paid the clockmaker quite highly.

I'm afraid they're not very well-designed creatures, dragons." Vimes listened. "They would never have survived at all except that their home swamps were isolated and short of predators. Not that a dragon made good eating, anyway-once you'd taken away the leathery skin and the enormous flight muscles, what was left must have been like biting into a badly-run chemical factory. No wonder dragons were always ill. They relied on permanent stomach trouble for supplies of fuel. Most of their brain power was taken up with controlling the complexities of then-digestion, which could distill flame-producing fuels from the most unlikely ingredients. They could even rearrange their internal plumbing overnight to deal with difficult processes. They lived on a chemical knife-edge the whole time. One misplaced hiccup and they were geography. And when it came to choosing nesting sites, the females had all the common sense and mothering instinct of a brick." Vimes wondered why people had been so worried about dragons in the olden days. If there was one in a cave near you, all you had to do was wait until it self-ignited, blew itself up, or died of acute indigestion.

Have you ever been in love, Alison?" He leaned in and draped his arm along the back of her chair. "I'm not talking about a crush or infatuation. I'm talking about where you'd do anything for someone. Can't stop thinking about them. Be there if they were sick or just needed a shoulder to lean on. Someone you wanted to wake up to every single day and couldn't wait until you saw them again at night. Someone who made you feel like you're everything you've ever wanted to be.

It wasn’t even a bar. It was just a room where people drank while they waited for other people with whom they had business. The business usually involved the transfer of ownership of something from one person to another, but then, what business doesn’t?

Well, er…it’s…well, it’s…it’s symbolic, Archchancellor.” “Ah?” The Senior Wrangler felt that something more was expected. He groped around in the dusty attics of his education. “Of…the leaves, d’y’see…they’re symbolic of…of green, d’y’see, whereas the berries, in fact, yes, the berries symbolize…symbolize white. Yes. White and green. Very…symbolic.” He waited. He was not, unfortunately, disappointed. “What of?” The Senior Wrangler coughed. “I’m not sure there has to be an of,” he said. “Ah? So,” said the Archchancellor, thoughtfully, “it could be said that the white and green symbolize a small parasitic plant?” “Yes, indeed,” said the Senior Wrangler. “So mistletoe, in fact, symbolizes mistletoe?” “Exactly, Archchancellor,” said the Senior Wrangler, who was now just hanging on. “Funny thing, that,” said Ridcully, in the same thoughtful tone of voice. “That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?

He sat down on the turf, relishing the breeze through the gorse bushes and sucking in pure fresh air. Whatever you thought about goblins, their cave had the kind of atmosphere about which people say, "I should wait two minutes before going in there, if I was you.

It’s a little-known secret, and it should probably stay that way: attempting suicide usually jump-starts your brain chemistry. There must be something about taking all those pills that either floods the brain sufficiently or depletes it so completely that balance is restored. Whatever the mechanism, the result is that you emerge on the other side of the attempt with an awareness of what it means to be alive. Simple acts seem miraculous: you can stand transfixed for hours just watching the wind ruffle the tiny hairs along the top of your arm. And always, with every sensation, is the knowledge that you must have survived for a reason. You just can’t doubt it anymore. You must have a purpose, or you would have died. You have the rest of your life to discover what that purpose is. And you can’t wait to start looking.

Newton Pulsifer had never had a cause in his life. Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He’d have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he’d have preferred a half-hour’s chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He’d sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn’t come. And then he’d tried to become an official Atheist and hadn’t got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest.

Azrael raised his finger to a face that filled the sky, lit by the faint glow of dying galaxies. There are a billion Deaths, but they are all aspects of the one Death: Azrael, the Great Attractor, the Death of Universes, the beginning and end of time. Most of the universe is made up of dark matter, and only Azrael knows who it is. Eyes so big that a supernova would be a mere suggestion of a gleam on the iris turned slowly and focused on the tiny figure on the immense whorled plains of his fingertips. Beside Azrael the big Clock hung in the center of the entire web of the dimensions, and ticked onward. Stars glittered in Azrael's eyes. The Death of the Discworld stood up. LORD I ASK FOR - Three of the servants of oblivion slid into existence alongside him. One said, Do not listen. He stands accused of meddling. One said, And morticide. One said, And pride. And living with intent to survive. One said, And siding with chaos against good order. Azrael raised an eyebrow. The servants drifted away from Death, expectantly. LORD, WE KNOW THERE IS NO GOOD ORDER EXCEPT THAT WHICH WE CREATE.... Azrael's expression did not change. THERE IS NO HOPE BUT US. THERE IS NO MERCY BUT US. THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US. The dark, sad face filled the sky. ALL THINGS THAT ARE ARE OURS. BUT 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. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS. Death took a step backwards. It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features. Death glanced sideways at the servants. LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN? He waited. LORD? said Death. In the time it took to answer, several galaxies unfolded, whirled around Azrael like paper streamers, impacted, then were gone. Then Azrael said: Yes.

I heard how you got your name ..." Ahmed shrugged. "The man had poisoned the water. The only well for twenty miles. That killed five men, seven women, thirteen children and thirty-one camels. And some of them were very valuable camels, mark you. I had evidence from the man who sold him the poison and a trustworthy witness who had seen him near the well on the fateful night. Once I had testimony from his servant, why wait an hour?" "Sometimes we have trials," said Vimes brightly. "Yes. Your Lord Vetinari decides. Well, fife hundred miles from anywhere the law is me." Ahmed waved a hand. "Oh, no doubt the man would suggest there were mitigating circumstances, that he had an unhappy childhood or was driven by Compulsive Well-Poisoning Disorder. But I have a compulsion to behead cowardly murderers." Vimes gave up. The man had a point.

Newton Pulsifer had never had a cause in his life. Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He’d have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he’d have preferred a half-hour’s chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He’d sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn’t come. And then he’d tried to become an official Atheist and hadn’t got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. And he’d given up on ecology when the ecology magazine he’d been subscribing to had shown its readers a plan of a self-sufficient garden, and had drawn the ecological goat tethered within three feet of the ecological beehive. Newt had spent a lot of time at his grandmother’s house in the country and thought he knew something about the habits of both goats and bees, and concluded therefore that the magazine was run by a bunch of bib-overalled maniacs. Besides, it used the word “community” too often; Newt had always suspected that people who regularly used the word “community” were using it in a very specific sense that excluded him and everyone he knew. Then he’d tried believing in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he’d innocently started reading new books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He’d found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn’t really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist. To Newt’s straightforward mind this was intolerable. Newt had not believed in the Cub Scouts and then, when he was old enough, not in the Scouts either. He was prepared to believe, though, that the job of wages clerk at United Holdings [Holdings] PLC, was possibly the most boring in the world. This is how Newton Pulsifer looked as a man: if he went into a phone booth and changed, he might manage to come out looking like Clark Kent.

This isn’t something I had planned to talk about so soon,” her grandmother said as they entered the gardens. “I wanted to wait awhile longer to give you a chance to demonstrate that you were ready, that you had listened to what I told you about growing up and making mature decisions. I wanted you to season a little more. But we don’t always get what we want in this life. In fact, we don’t get what we want most of the time. We get compromises and settlements, half measures and tamped-down dreams. We get half a loaf baked, half a glass filled. That’s what we have here.” Phryne nodded, having no idea what she was talking about. “That might be so, but we don’t have to like it.” “We shouldn’t have to accept it, either. Mostly, we don’t. We understand the odds are against us, but we still strive for something more. We make our best effort each time out because now and then we get exactly what we want.

Our life together was filled with contrasts. One week we were croc hunting with Dateline in Cape York. Only a short time after that, Steve and I found ourselves out of our element entirely, at the CableACE Award banquet in Los Angeles. Steve was up for an award as host of the documentary Ten Deadliest Snakes in the World. He lost out to the legendary Walter Cronkite. Any time you lose to Walter Cronkite, you can’t complain too much. After the awards ceremony, we got roped into an after-party that was not our cup of tea. Everyone wore tuxedos. Steve wore khaki. Everyone drank, smoked, and made small talk, none of which Steve did at all. We got separated, and I saw him across the room looking quite claustrophobic. I sidled over. “Why don’t we just go back up to our room?” I whispered into his ear. This proved to be a terrific idea. It fit in nicely with our plans for starting a family, and it was quite possibly the best seven minutes of my life! After our stay in Los Angeles, Steve flew directly back to the zoo, while I went home by way of one my favorite places in the world, Fiji. We were very interested in working there with crested iguanas, a species under threat. I did some filming for the local TV station and checked out a population of the brilliantly patterned lizards on the Fijian island of Yadua Taba. When I got back to Queensland, I discovered that I was, in fact, expecting. Steve and I were over the moon. I couldn’t believe how thrilled he was. Then, mid-celebration, he suddenly pulled up short. He eyed me sideways. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You were just in Fiji for two weeks.” “Remember the CableACE Awards? Where you got bored in that room full of tuxedos?” He gave me a sly grin. “Ah, yes,” he said, satisfied with his paternity (as if there was ever any doubt!). We had ourselves an L.A. baby.

When I got back to Queensland, I discovered that I was, in fact, expecting. Steve and I were over the moon. I couldn’t believe how thrilled he was. Then, mid-celebration, he suddenly pulled up short. He eyed me sideways. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You were just in Fiji for two weeks.” “Remember the CableACE Awards? Where you got bored in that room full of tuxedos?” He gave me a sly grin. “Ah, yes,” he said, satisfied with his paternity (as if there was ever any doubt!). We had ourselves an L.A. baby. I visited the doctor. “This is a first for me,” I said. “What do I do?” “Just keep doing what you would normally do,” the doctor said. “It’s probably not a good time to take up skydiving, but it would be fine to carry on with your usual activities.” I was thrilled to get Dr. Michael’s advice. He had been the Irwin family doctor for years, and he definitely understood what our lifestyle entailed. I embarked on an ambitious schedule of filmmaking.

Newton Pulsifer had never had a cause in his life. Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strenght of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. And he'd given up on ecology when the ecology magazine he'd been subscribing to had shown its readers a plan of a self-suficient garden, and had drawn the ecological goat tethered within three feet of the ecological beehive. Newt had spent a lot of time at his grandmother's house in the country and thought he knew something about the habits of both goats and bees, and concluded therefore that the magazine was run by a bunch of bib-overalled maniacs. Besides, it used the word 'community' too often; Newton had always suspected that people who regularly used the word 'community' were using it in a very specific sense that excluded him and everyone he knew.

What’ll it be?” Steve asked me, just days after our wedding. “Do we go on the honeymoon we’ve got planned, or do you want to go catch crocs?” My head was still spinning from the ceremony, the celebration, and the fact that I could now use the two words “my husband” and have them mean something real. The four months between February 2, 1992--the day Steve asked me to marry him--and our wedding day on June 4 had been a blur. Steve’s mother threw us an engagement party for Queensland friends and family, and I encountered a very common theme: “We never thought Steve would get married.” Everyone said it--relatives, old friends, and schoolmates. I’d smile and nod, but my inner response was, Well, we’ve got that in common. And something else: Wait until I get home and tell everybody I am moving to Australia. I knew what I’d have to explain. Being with Steve, running the zoo, and helping the crocs was exactly the right thing to do. I knew with all my heart and soul that this was the path I was meant to travel. My American friends--the best, closest ones--understood this perfectly. I trusted Steve with my life and loved him desperately. One of the first challenges was how to bring as many Australian friends and family as possible over to the United States for the wedding. None of us had a lot of money. Eleven people wound up making the trip from Australia, and we held the ceremony in the big Methodist church my grandmother attended. It was more than a wedding, it was saying good-bye to everyone I’d ever known. I invited everybody, even people who may not have been intimate friends. I even invited my dentist. The whole network of wildlife rehabilitators came too--four hundred people in all. The ceremony began at eight p.m., with coffee and cake afterward. I wore the same dress that my older sister Bonnie had worn at her wedding twenty-seven years earlier, and my sister Tricia wore at her wedding six years after that. The wedding cake had white frosting, but it was decorated with real flowers instead of icing ones. Steve had picked out a simple ring for me, a quarter carat, exactly what I wanted. He didn’t have a wedding ring. We were just going to borrow one for the service, but we couldn’t find anybody with fingers that were big enough. It turned out that my dad’s wedding ring fitted him, and that’s the one we used. Steve’s mother, Lyn, gave me a silk horseshoe to put around my wrist, a symbol of good luck. On our wedding day, June 4, 1992, it had been eight months since Steve and I first met. As the minister started reading the vows, I could see that Steve was nervous. His tuxedo looked like it was strangling him. For a man who was used to working in the tropics, he sure looked hot. The church was air-conditioned, but sweat drops formed on the ends of his fingers. Poor Steve, I thought. He’d never been up in front of such a big crowd before. “The scariest situation I’ve ever been in,” Steve would say later of the ceremony. This from a man who wrangled crocodiles! When the minister invited the groom to kiss the bride, I could feel all Steve’s energy, passion, and love. I realized without a doubt we were doing the right thing.