Hogfather (Discworld, #20; Death, #4)

by Terry Pratchett

E verything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.

The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as “Things just happen. What the hell.”

You may think of us as . . . the Auditors.

His hand hovered over the Guild’s ancient and valuable tantalus, with its labeled decanters of Mur, Nig, Trop and Yeksihw.*

Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvelous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.

After all, what was the point of teaching children to be children? They were naturally good at it.

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.

Medium Dave. “You’re just someone in a pointy hat. This is my brother Banjo, that’s Peachy, this is Chick—”

There had been a Real Agatean Ninja, for example, with Fearsome Death Grip, and a Captain Carrot One-Man Night Watch with a complete wardrobe of toy weapons,

“How can the Hogfather be dead? He’s . . . isn’t he what you are? An—” ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION.

Everything else was created by Death. Color, along with plumbing and music, were arts that escaped the grasp of his genius.

he’d been trying to learn to play the violin again. He’d never been able to understand why he couldn’t play music.

Archchancellor Weatherwax only used it once and then had it sealed up!

The late (or at least severely delayed) Bergholt Stuttley Johnson was generally recognized as the worst inventor in the world, yet in a very specialized sense. Merely bad inventors made things that failed to operate. He wasn’t among these small fry. Any fool could make something that did absolutely nothing when you pressed the button. He scorned such fumble-fingered amateurs. Everything he built worked. It just didn’t do what it said on the box. If you wanted a small ground-to-air missile, you asked Johnson to design an ornamental fountain. It amounted to pretty much the same thing. But this never discouraged him, or the morbid curiosity of his clients. Music, landscape gardening, architecture—there was no start to his talents.

Ridcully said, it was known that he had designed and built several large musical organs and, when you got right down to it, it was all just plumbing, wasn’t it?

verrucas,”

The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step. Where people go wrong is in ignoring all the thousands of other steps that come after it. They make the single step of deciding to become one with the universe, and for some reason forget to take the logical next step of living for seventy years on a mountain and a daily bowl of rice and yak-butter tea that would give it any kind of meaning. While evidence says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, they’re probably all on first steps.

“Ah, well, yes, you see, one of the things that makes folks even more jolly is knowing there’re people who ain’t,”

what’s this Anthropomorphic Personification, then?” +++ Humans Have Always Ascribed Random, Seasonal, Natural Or Inexplicable Actions To Human-Shaped Entities. Such Examples Are Jack Frost, The Hogfather, The Tooth Fairy And Death +++

Like most people with no grasp whatsoever of real economics, Mustrum Ridcully equated “proper financial control” with the counting of paper clips.

“Eyeballs,” said the raven. “Hah, wizards know how to live all right, eh? They don’t want for nothing around here, I can tell you.” “They’re olives,” said Susan. “Tough luck,” said the raven. “They’re mine now.”

man is naturally a mythopoeic creature.” “What’s that mean?” said the Senior Wrangler. “Means we make things up as we go along,” said the Dean, not looking up.

Albert knew he couldn’t win. Death had the ultimate poker face.

He pushed the page down again. “No, you stay still, sonny. Else you’ll just be a paragraph.”

“Charity ain’t giving people what you wants to give, it’s giving people what they need to get.”

I HAVE ALWAYS CHOSEN THE PATH OF DUTY.

Everyone, it is said, has a book inside them. In this library, everyone was inside a book.

BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT, IS THAT THE IDEA? “That’s about the size of it, master. A good god line, that. Don’t give ’em too much and tell ’em to be happy with it. Jam tomorrow, see.” THIS IS WRONG. Death hesitated. I MEAN . . . IT’S RIGHT TO BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU’VE NOT. BUT YOU’VE GOT TO HAVE SOMETHING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT HAVING. THERE’S NO POINT IN BEING HAPPY ABOUT HAVING NOTHING.

“I meant, this is how it’s supposed to go, master,” said Albert. NO. YOU MEAN THIS IS HOW IT GOES.

He tried to create these flashes of personality but somehow they betrayed themselves, they tried too hard, like an adolescent boy going out wearing an after-shave called “Rampant.”

Accreting

“Pigs?” “Oh, you know, sir. Tusker and Snouter and Gouger and Rooter.

In front of the group was a legless man on a small wheeled trolley, who was singing at the top of his voice and banging two saucepans together. His name was Arnold Sideways. Pushing him along was Coffin Henry, whose croaking progress through an entirely different song was punctuated by bouts of off-the-beat coughing. He was accompanied by a perfectly ordinary-looking man in torn, dirty and yet expensive clothing, whose pleasant tenor voice was drowned out by the quacking of a duck on his head. He answered to the name of Duck Man, although he never seemed to understand why, or why he was always surrounded by people who seemed to see ducks where no ducks could be. And finally, being towed along by a small gray dog on a string, was Foul Ole Ron, generally regarded in Ankh-Morpork as the deranged beggars’ deranged beggar. He was probably incapable of singing, but at least he was attempting to swear in time to the beat, or beats.

RECUMBENT.

IT WASN’T STEALING. IT WAS JUST . . . REDISTRIBUTION. IT WILL BE A GOOD DEED IN A NAUGHTY WORLD. “No, it won’t!” THEN IT WILL BE A NAUGHTY DEED IN A NAUGHTY WORLD AND WILL PASS COMPLETELY UNNOTICED.

IT IS THE THINGS YOU BELIEVE WHICH MAKE YOU HUMAN. GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS, IT’S ALL THE SAME.

HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. “So we can believe the big ones?” YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. “They’re not the same at all!” YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME . . . SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED. “Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—” MY POINT EXACTLY.

Bloody Stupid Johnson’s approach to music was similar to his approach in every field that was caressed by his genius in the same way that a potato field is touched by a late frost. Make it loud, he said. Make it wide. Make it all-embracing. And thus the Great Organ of Unseen University was the only one in the world where you could play an entire symphony scored for thunderstorm and squashed toad noises.

*They generally know in time to have their best robe cleaned, do some serious damage to the wine cellar and have a really good last meal. It’s a nicer version of Death Row, with the bonus of no lawyers.