Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
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Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.
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It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
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And just when you’d think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved. It was this free-will thing, of course. It was a bugger. Aziraphale had tried to explain it to him once. The whole point, he’d said—this was somewhere around 1020, when they’d first reached their little Arrangement—the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be. Whereas people like Crowley and, of course, himself, were set in their ways right from the start. People ...more
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“Anyway, why’re we talking about this good and evil? They’re just names for sides. We know that.”
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That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn’t a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven, in Crowley’s opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.
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“You see, evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction,” said the angel. “It is ultimately negative, and therefore encompasses its downfall even at its moments of apparent triumph. No matter how grandiose, how well-planned, how apparently foolproof an evil plan, the inherent sinfulness will by definition rebound upon its instigators. No matter how apparently successful it may seem upon the way, at the end it will wreck itself. It will founder upon the rocks of iniquity and sink headfirst to vanish without trace into the seas of oblivion.” Crowley considered this. “Nah,” he said, at ...more
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“You must have had records,” he said. “There are always records. Everyone has records these days.” He glanced proudly at Aziraphale. “It was one of my better ideas.”
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“Maybe some terrorist—?” Aziraphale began. “Not one of ours,” said Crowley. “Or ours,” said Aziraphale. “Although ours are freedom fighters, of course.” “I’ll tell you what,” said Crowley, scorching rubber on the Tadfield bypass. “Cards on the table time. I’ll tell you ours if you tell me yours.” “All right. You first.” “Oh, no. You first.” “But you’re a demon.” “Yes, but a demon of my word, I should hope.” Aziraphale named five political leaders. Crowley named six. Three names appeared on both lists. “See?” said Crowley. “It’s just like I’ve always said. They’re cunning buggers, humans. You ...more
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Dabbling, she’d realized, was exactly what her customers wanted. They didn’t want to be shoved in it up to their necks. They didn’t want the multi-planular mysteries of Time and Space, they just wanted to be reassured that Mother was getting along fine now she was dead. They wanted just enough Occult to season the simple fare of their lives, and preferably in portions no longer than forty-five minutes, followed by tea and biscuits.
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Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. If only the old boy had known what opportunities the future had held . . .
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“What you’re all sayin’,” he summed up, in his best chairman tones, “is that it wouldn’t be any good at all if the Greasy Johnsonites beat the Them or the other way round?” “That’s right,” said Pepper. “Because,” she added, “if we beat them, we’d have to be our own deadly enemies. It’d be me an’ Adam against Brian an’ Wensley.” She sat back. “Everyone needs a Greasy Johnson,” she said. “Yeah,” said Adam. “That’s what I thought. It’s no good anyone winning. That’s what I thought.” He stared at Dog, or through Dog. “Seems simple enough to me,” said Wensleydale, sitting back. “I don’t see why ...more
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You think wars get started because some old duke gets shot, or someone cuts off someone’s ear, or someone’s sited their missiles in the wrong place. It’s not like that. That’s just, well, just reasons, which haven’t got anything to do with it. What really causes wars is two sides that can’t stand the sight of one another and the pressure builds up and up and then anything will cause it. Anything at all.
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But even if you win, you can’t really beat the other side, because you don’t really want to. I mean, not for good. You’ll just start all over again. You’ll just keep on sending people like these two,” he pointed to Crowley and Aziraphale, “to mess people around. It’s hard enough bein’ people as it is, without other people coming and messin’ you around.”
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“I don’t see what’s so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin’ upset ’cos they act like people,” said Adam severely. “Anyway, if you stopped tellin’ people it’s all sorted out after they’re dead, they might try sorting it all out while they’re alive.
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“God does not play games with His loyal servants,” said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice. “Whooo-eee,” said Crowley. “Where have you been?”