Wintersmith (Discworld, #35; Tiffany Aching, #3)

by Terry Pratchett

First Sight and Second Thoughts, that’s what a witch had to rely on: First Sight to see what’s really there, and Second Thoughts to watch the First Thoughts to check that they were thinking right.

The trouble with being this old, you know, is that being young is so far away from me now that it seems sometimes that it happened to someone else. A long life is not what it’s cracked up to be, that is a fact.

You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap. But you didn’t because, as Miss Tick had once explained: a) it would make the world a better place for only a very short time; b) it would then make the world a slightly worse place; and c) you’re not supposed to be as stupid as they are.

Twoshirts, which was only half a day away. And this didn’t worry them at all. They were going to do the jobs their fathers did, or raise children like their mothers did. And that was fine, Tiffany added hurriedly to herself. But they hadn’t decided. It was just happening to them, and they didn’t notice.

“Yes. And not one scruple more! A scruple being, of course, a weight of twenty grains, or one twenty-fourth of an ounce. I am in fact . . . unscrupulous!”

Some people think that “coven” is a word for a group of witches, and it’s true that’s what the dictionary says. But the real word for a group of witches is an “argument.”

If you want something done, give it to someone who’s busy!

She probably meant that they looked up above the everyday chores and wondered, “What’s all this about? How does it work? What should I do? What am I for?”

wonderful as people think. I mean, you get the same amount of youth as everyone else, but a great big extra helping of being very old and deaf and creaky.

Tiffany sat on a stump and cried a bit, because it needed to be done. Then she went and milked the goats, because someone had to do that, too.

There was a crash of saucepans followed by the groioioioing of a saucepan lid spinning into silence on the floor.

People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.

Well, her story wasn’t going to be the story of a little girl who got pushed around. There was no sense in that.

You couldn’t make a picture by pouring a lot of paint into a bucket. If you were human, you knew that.

“She had pets that fed you dreams until you died of hunger. I hate things that try to take away what you are. I want to kill those things, Mr. Anybody. I want to kill all of them. When you take away memories, you take away the person. Everything they are.”

“I hope I’ve got it right, though,” said Roland. “My aunts say I’m too clever by half.” “Glad tae hear it,” said Rob Anybody, “’cuz that’s much better than bein’ too stupid by three quarters!

The center of the seesaw does not move. It feels neither upness nor downness. It is balanced.