Carpe Jugulum (Discworld, #23; Witches, #6)

by Terry Pratchett

Nanny reflected that Agnes read books. All the witches who’d lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn’t, the reason being that the words got in the way.

“Repent? Me? Cheek! I can’t start repenting at my time of life. I’d never get any work done.

mean, it’s one thing saying you’ve got the best god, but sayin’ it’s the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my opinion. I know where I can find at least two any day of the week.

an occasion like this calls for something a little simpler than several bars of ‘Pink Hedgehog Rag.’”

“Yes, not many royal fanfares end with ‘shave and a haircut, no legs,’*” said Agnes.

When Esme gets here she’s going to go through this priest like cabbage soup.”

a few bars from the “Hedgehog Cakewalk.”

“‘Carpe Jugulum,’” read Agnes aloud. “That’s . . . well, Carpe Diem is ‘Seize the Day,’ so this means—” “‘Go for the Throat,’” said Nanny.

books that were all about the world tended to be written by people who knew all about books rather than all about the world.

She was not, herself, hugely in favor of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn’t exactly difficult. Even cats managed it.

Magrat relaxed a little. “She said her first word this morning,” she said, looking proud. “What, at fourteen days?” said Nanny doubtfully. “Yes. It was ‘blup.’” “Blup?” “Yes. It was . . . more of a bubble than a word, I suppose.”

they wore their hair long like a poet who hopes that romantically flowing locks will make up for a wretched inability to find a rhyme for “daffodil.”

as many as possible will drink of a victim so that he is the slave of all . . . ‘clustersuck’

And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” “It’s a lot more complicated than that—” “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Is it a true bird or is it something that exists within a—” “It’s a thing that is,” said Granny sharply. “Don’t go spilling allegory all down your shirt.”