The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1)

by Terry Pratchett

That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.

“We are as gods to the beasts o’ the field, my jiggit. We order the time o’ their birth and the time o’ their death. Between times, we ha’ a duty.”

“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”

What’s better, to try to save your brother and be brave, courageous, stupid, and dead, or save the boy and be brave, courageous, sensible, and alive? But something kept saying that stupid and dead would have been more . . . right.

No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is . . . no one could stand that for long.