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

by Terry Pratchett

The children refused to disbelieve in the monsters because, frankly, they knew damn well the things were there.

Wishing you Joye and all Goode Cheer at Hogswatchtime & All Through The Yeare.”

“Oh, it’s largely intuitive, Archchancellor,” said Ponder. “Obviously you have to spend a lot of time learning it first, though.

“They always gives me bath salts,” complained Nobby. “And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can’t think why, ’cos it’s not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You’d think they’d take the hint, wouldn’t you?”

“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.

“That’s a good idea,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “It’s an analgesic.” “Really? Well, possibly, though it’s probably better to give it to him by mouth,”

‘Son, never drink any drink with a paper umbrella in it, never drink any drink with a humorous name, and never drink any drink that changes color when the last ingredient goes in.

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.

man is naturally a mythopoeic creature.”

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

“I’m sure he wouldn’t keep on eating them if they were addictive,”

MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF.

never being a man to wonder what any kind of switch did when it was so much easier and quicker to find out by pulling it,