A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32)

by Terry Pratchett

First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.

‘There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.’

They say that when some vampires bit her they all started to crave tea and sweet biscuits.

Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it ‘opening your eyes again’. But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no rest, just endless . . . endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call . . . boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song, it went ‘Twinkle twinkle little star . . .’ What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!