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

by Terry Pratchett

It was quite big inside. A human could just about stand up in the middle, but would then bend double with coughing because the middle was where there was a hole to let smoke out.

“This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”

It’s these little things you remember when the bottom falls out of the world, and you’re falling—

“Cackling,” to a witch, didn’t just mean nasty laughter. It meant your mind drifting away from its anchor. It meant you losing your grip. It meant loneliness and hard work and responsibility and other people’s problems driving you crazy a little bit at a time, each bit so small that you’d hardly notice it, until you thought that it was normal to stop washing and wear a kettle on your head. It meant you thinking that the fact you knew more than anyone else in your village made you better than them. It meant thinking that right and wrong were negotiable.

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 art of expectations. Show people what they want to see, show ’em what they think should be there.

Miss Tick smiled. “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!”

They say that there can never be two snowflakes that are exactly alike, but has anyone checked lately?

The castle had been built by people who did not like to have their doors battered down,

“Living this long’s not as 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.

“We make happy endings, child, day to day.

MUSTARD IS ALWAYS TRICKY, said Death as they began to fade.

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.

“Shut your mouth, girl—something might fly into it.” Tiffany shut her mouth. Something might fly into it.

Romancin’ is verra important, ye ken. Basically it’s a way the boy can get close to the girl wi’oot her attackin’ him and scratchin’ his eyes oot.”

Y’know, she’s very good at people. Funny, really, ’cuz she doesn’t like ’em much.”

In the end he put it down to too many trolls moving into the area. This wasn’t very logical, but such beliefs generally aren’t.

“Anoia, Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers,” said the woman.

Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer.”

the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you.

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.

“We’ve got cornucopias,” said Nanny Ogg, “whatever they are.”

“Like manners from heaven, that sort of stuff. I expect it’s made out of raw firmament.”

“Aye, true enough,” Rob grunted. “We dinna ken the meanin’ o’ thousands o’ wurds!”

“Glad tae hear it,” said Rob Anybody, “’cuz that’s much better than bein’ too stupid by three quarters! Now grab the lady an’ run!”