Pyramids (Discworld, #7)

by Terry Pratchett

It will certainly show what our ancestors would be thinking if they were alive today. People have often speculated about this. Would they approve of modern society, they ask, would they marvel at present-day achievements? And of course this misses a fundamental point. What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: “Why is it so dark in here?”

and as self-centered as a gyroscope.

“We do not execute. We do not massacre. We never, you may be very certain, we never torture. We have no truck with crimes of passion or hatred or pointless gain. We do not do it for a delight in inhumation, or to feed some secret inner need, or for petty advantage, or for some cause or belief; I tell you, gentlemen, that all these reasons are in the highest degree suspect. Look into the face of a man who will kill you for a belief and your nostrils will snuff up the scent of abomination. Hear a speech declaring a holy war and, I assure you, your ears should catch the clink of evil’s scales and the dragging of its monstrous tail over the purity of the language.

“No, we do it for the money.

Life seemed so much brighter when she stopped.

Broadly, therefore, the three even now lurching across the deserted planks of the Brass Bridge were dead drunk assassins and the men behind them were bent on inserting the significant comma.

People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people.

You don’t expect real royalty to pay its way. That’s one of the signs of real royalty, not having any money.”

You scrimped and saved to send them to the best schools, and then they went and paid you back by getting educated.

“The trouble with you, sibling, is that you know the cost of everything and the value of nothing!”

So he’d done pyramids, and they’d been good ones, not like some you saw these days, with the wrong number of sides and walls you could put your foot through. And yes, somehow they’d gone from strength to strength.

We all have to look alike when we’re alive, he thought, and now they make sure we’re identical when we’re dead. What a kingdom.

In fact, the last thing the priesthood wanted was enthusiastic soldiers. Enthusiastic soldiers with no fighting to do soon get bored and start thinking dangerous thoughts, like how much better they could run the country.

“If they’re dead there’s nothing I can do about it,” she said. “And if they’re alive, there’s nothing I can do about it. So I shan’t.”

The sound of the monsters of the river beginning the long journey to handbaghood broke out behind Teppic as he sloshed up the far bank.

The thing, he told himself, is not to look up or down, but straight ahead, into the marble, parcelling the impossible height into manageable sections. Just like time. That’s how we survive infinity—we kill it by breaking it up into small bits.

And then, with deceptive slowness and considerable dignity, it exploded.