The Carpet People Quotes

“They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings.
It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“You don't have to chase around after creatures, Pismire had said. You watch them for long enough, and then you'll find the place to wait and they'll come to you. There's nearly always a better way of doing something.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“He’s a man of few words, and he doesn’t know what either of them means,” people said, but not when he was within hearing.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“He thought of the deep crevasses and windy caves of Underlay, and the stories of the creatures that dwelt there. Of course, he didn’t believe in them. He’d told them, because the handing on of an oral mythology was very important to a developing culture, but he didn’t believe in supernatural monsters. He shivered. He hoped they didn’t believe in him.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants—the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare from becoming a mere lower-class brawl.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Correct observation followed by meticulous deduction and the precise visualization of goals is vital to the success of any enterprise.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“What you look at, you change.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“...Merchant's Ware, the city most people thought of as the real city. Normally its narrow streets were crowded with stalls, and people from all over the Carpet. They'd each be trying to cheat one another in that open-and-aboveboard way known as "doing business.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Everywhere was connected to everywhere else, Pismire had said.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Positive thinking,' he would say, 'is also very important.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Nothing has to happen. History isn’t something you live. It is something you make. One decision. One person. At the right time. Nothing is too small to make a difference. Anything can be changed.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“The Carpet was full of life, but it did not know it was alive. It could be, but it could not think. It did not even know what it was. “And so from the dust came us, the Carpet People. We gave the Carpet its name, and named the creatures, and the weaving was complete.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Afterward, there was that long, crowded pause in which everyone decides that although they are very shaken, and possibly upside down, they are, to their surprise, still alive.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“You don't have to chase around after creatures, Pismire had said.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Not what you'd call stupid. His brain got there in the end. It just went the long way round.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“It seemed to Snibril that those who carried all their personal goods in one hand looked a bit more cheerful than those who were leaving half theirs behind.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“The apothecary’s name was Owlglass. He hummed to himself as he worked in his back room. He’d found a new type of blue fluff, which he was grinding down. It was probably good for curing something. He’d have to try it out on people until he found out what.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“tromps”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Glurk hit the guard in as friendly a way as possible.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“It was the Law that every tenth year the people of all the tribes in the Dumii Empire should come and be Counted. They did not go all the way to the great capital city of Ware, but went instead to the little walled town of Tregon Marus. The Counting was always a great occasion. Tregon Marus would double in size and importance overnight as tribal tents were pitched outside its walls. There was a horse market and a five-day fair, old friends to be met, and a flood of news to be exchanged. And there was the Counting itself. New names were added to the crackling scrolls, which, the people liked to believe, were taken to Ware, even to the Great Palace of the Emperor himself. The Dumii clerks laboriously wrote down how many pigs and goats and tromps everybody had, and one by one the people shuffled on to the next table and paid their taxes in furs and skins. That was the unpopular part. So the queue wound round Tregon Marus, in at the East Gate, through the postern and stables, across the market square, and through the countinghouse. Even the youngest babies were carried past the clerks, for the quill pens to wobble and scratch their names on the parchment. Many a tribesman got a funny name because a clerk didn’t know how to spell, and there’s more of that sort of thing in History than you might expect.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“The Deftmenes are mad and the Dumii are sane, thought Snibril, and that’s just the same as being mad except that it’s quieter.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“Together, they are. Individually, they’re stupid. Hah! The opposite of us, really.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People

“but he didn’t believe in supernatural monsters. He shivered. He hoped they didn’t believe in him.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People