Pyramids (Discworld, #7)
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Read between August 8 - August 22, 2021
29%
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You scrimped and saved to send them to the best schools, and then they went and paid you back by getting educated.
32%
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The king ambled toward him in a nonchalant way designed to make the master builder feel he was among friends. Oh no, Ptaclusp thought, he’s going to Remember my Name.
39%
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“I will retire to my quarters,” said Teppic coldly. “I have much to think about.” “Therefore I will have dinner sent in,” said the priest. “It will be roast chicken.” “I hate chicken.” Dios smiled. “No, sire. On Wednesdays the king always enjoys chicken, sire.”
Josh Baker
For the first time, I relate to a Pratchett character. Why must the context be so ignorant and racist? Because he was a white British guy in the 80s when he wrote this. It's a bad joke in and of itself. What does one do reading personal truths flanked by (to my modern mind) inexcusable authorial core beliefs? Trust the reviews that say he grows and gets better, and that this book is "one of the bad ones" in this context. It's tough to see him find his comedic voice with a premise like this, though. It's a shitty bag of mixed emotions. These are full-book feelings, not necessarily represented by this quote.
39%
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The face on the other side of the slit was half-concealed by a black hood, but she could just make out a worried expression. “Don’t despair,” it said. “I wasn’t despairing. I was trying to get some sleep.” “Oh. Pardon me, I’m sure. I’ll just go away and leave you, shall I?” “But in the morning I shall wake up and then I’ll despair. What are you standing on, demon?” “Do you know what a crampon is?” “No.” “Well, it’s two of them.” They stared at each other in silence.
43%
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The servants cowered behind Teppic. This wasn’t mere anger. This was wrath. Real, old-time, vintage wrath. And waxing? It waxed like a hatful of moons.
Josh Baker
The man does good words funny.
45%
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“How many men have stopped drinking themselves stupid at the age of twenty to save a stranger dying of liver failure at forty?”
53%
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He was a religious man. It was a great comfort knowing that the gods were there. It was knowing they were here that was the terrible part.
53%
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And Dil was realizing that there are few things that so shake belief as seeing, clearly and precisely, the object of that belief. Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn’t believing. It’s where belief stops, because it isn’t needed anymore.
64%
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He’d always believed it to be true. He’d just never expected it ever actually to happen.
69%
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“That’s ptraditional at the end of an Ephebian meal,” said Ptraci.
87%
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Teppic eased himself up another couple of feet and then gently reached down to pull a knife out of the marble. It wasn’t going to work, though. Knife climbing was for those short and awkward passages, and frowned on anyway because it suggested you’d chosen a wrong route. It wasn’t for this sort of thing, unless you had unlimited knives.
Josh Baker
I like rock climbing.
88%
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The trouble with gods is that after enough people start believing in them, they begin to exist. And what begins to exist isn’t what was originally intended.
99%
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Younger assassins, who are usually very poor, have very clear ideas about the morality of wealth until they become older assassins, who are usually very rich, when they begin to take the view that injustice has its good points.