"Everywhere I look I see something holy"

Terry Pratchett quotes:)

In 'Maskerade':

"(Granny Weatherwax) practiced headology - practiced, in fact, until she was very good at it. And though there may be some superficial similarities between a psychiatrist and a headologist, there is a huge practical difference. A psychiatrist, dealing with a man who fears he is being followed by a large and terrible monster, will endeavor to convince him that monsters don't exist. Granny Weatherwax would simply give him a chair to stand on and a very heavy stick."

In "The Amazing Maurice..."

I am the thing that undermines and despoils! I am the sum of all that you deny! I am your true self! Will you OBEY ME?
(...) You are no answer... You offer (us) nothing except more pain. You just have a power that lets you enter people's minds when they are tired or stupid or upset. And you are in mine now. And still I stand here... Even though my body is shaking, I can keep a place free from you. I can control the shadows inside, which is where all darkness is.

In Carpe Jugulum:

Because that was the point, wasn't it? You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere.


She'd faced down others far more powerful than she was, if only she'd allowed them to believe it.


She'd never, ever asked for anything in return. And the trouble with not asking for anything in return was that sometimes you didn't get it.


She'd always tried to face toward the light. She'd always tried to face toward the light. But the harder you stared into the brightness the harsher it burned into you until, at last, the temptation picked you up and bid you turn around to see how long, rich, strong and dark, streaming away behind you, your shadow had become---


"Hah! But it was different then. There was flowers on the moor and the bridge was just stepping stones. That's 'cos I was in love."
"You mean it really does change because of the way you feel?" said Agnes.
"You spotted it. It's amazing how high and rocky the bridge can be if you're in a bad mood, I know that."
"I wonder how how it was for Granny, then?"
"Probably clouds could go underneath, girl."


"Are vampires ever grateful?"
"We can learn."
"You're just saying that in exchange for not actually being evil you'll simply be bad, is that it?"


An image appeared on the sand in front of them. She saw herself, kneeling in front of the anvil. She admired the dramatic effect. She'd always had a streak of theatrics, although she'd never admit it, and she appreciated in a disembodied way the strength with which she had thrust her pain into the iron. Someone had slightly spoiled the effect by putting a kettle on one end.


"No. I know you. I've always known you. The Count just let you out to torment me, but I've always known you were there. I've fought you every day of my life and you'll get no victory now."
She opened her eyes and stared into the blackness.
"I knows who you are now, Esmerelda Weatherwax," she said. "You don't scare me no more."


"That's not enough!" said Piotr, stepping forward. "Not after all he-"
"Then when he comes back you deal with him yourself!" snapped Granny loudly. "Teach your children! Don't trust the cannibal just 'cos he's usin' a knife and fork! And remember that vampires don't go where they're not invited!"


"The world is ... different." Oats's gaze went out across the haze, and the forests, and the purple mountains. "Everywhere I look I see something holy."
For the first time since he'd met her, he saw Granny Weatherwax smile properly. (...) "That's a start, then," she said.


From "The Wee Free Men":


That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn't stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.


Don't wish, Miss Tick had said. Do things.


From Wintersmith


"This I choose to do," she croaked, her breath leaving little clouds in the air. She cleared her throat and started again. "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 wasn't a spell, except in her own head, but if you couldn't make spells work in your own head, you couldn't make them work at all.


It's these little things you remember whe the ottom falls out of the world, and you're falling--
That wasn't just unfair; that was... cruel.
Remember the hat you wear! Remember the job that is in front of you! Balance! Balance is the thing. Hold balance in the center, hold the balance...


Yes! She smiled desperately. It was true. If you had the perfect center, if you got your mind right, you could balance. In the middle of the seesaw is a place that never moves...


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


No thing had any power that you didn't put there.


"You know, I don't think he wanted to hurt me. He was just upset," said Tiffany.


Where this takes me, there I choose to go, she told herself, letting the warmth pour into her. I choose. This I choose to do.


'Strength enough to build a home, Tim enough to hold a child, Love enough to break a heart.'
Balance... and it came quickly, out of nowhere, lifting her up inside.
The center of the seesaw does not move. It feels neither upness nor downness. It is balanced.


Good-bye to the glittering crown, Tiffany thought with a touch of regret. Good-bye to the dress made of dancing light, and good-bye to the ice roses and the snowflakes. Such a shame. Such a shame.


Green grass and blue skies will do.


Winter is over. I know. I've seen it through. Where it took me, there I chose to go. I chose when I danced with the Wintersmith.


From 'A Hat Full of Sky':


There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do.


Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.


It's up to you.


The hands know how, the mind will remember and grow stronger, Tiffany!


"What does your name mean in the Old Speech of the Nac Mac Feegle, Tiffany? Think..."
It rose from the depths of her mind, trailing the fog behind it. It came up through the clamoring voices and lifted her beyond the reach of ghostly hands. Ahead, the clouds parted.
"My name is Land Under Wave," said Tiffany, and slumped forward.
"No, no, none of that, we can't have that," said the figure holding her. "You've slept enough. Good, you know who you are! Now you must be up and doing! You must be Tiffany as hard as you may, and the other voices will leave you alone, depend on it."


Learning how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder, maybe.


"You're sad, and behind that you're watching yourself being sad and thinking, Oh, poor me, and behind that you're angry with me for not going 'There, there, poor dear.' Let me talk to those Third Thoughts then, because I want to hear from the girl who went to fight a fair queen armed with nothin' but a fryin' pan, not some child feelin' sorry for herself and wallowing in misery!"


I need it to help me now. No. I need me to help me.


Calm down. Slow down.


Sometimes the moon is light and sometimes it's in shadow, but you should always remember it's the same moon.


"It's a skill. Rain don't fall on a witch if she doesn't want it to, although personally I prefer to get wet and be thankful."
"Thankful for what?" said Tiffany.
"That I'll get dry later."


"You've come here to learn what's true and what's not, but there's little I can teach you that you don't already know. You just don't know you know it, and you'll spend the rest of your life learning what's already in your bones. And that's the truth."


From 'I Shall Wear Midnight':


Everyone wants magic to exist, Tiffany thought to herself, and what can I say? No, it doesn't? Or: Yes, it does, but it's not what you think? Everyone wants to believe that we can change the world by snapping our fingers.


Poison goes where poison's welcome.


"And anyway, I had the staff, and no one could take that away from me. That's what I learned at university: to be me, just what I am, and not worry about it. That knowledge is an invisible magical staff, all by itself."


"I'm very sorry if I have dredged up any scary recollection."
Eskarina smiled. "Oh, the scary ones are never a problem. It's the good ones that can be difficult to deal with."


"Don't be afraid--you will be all right! You just have to help yourself."


"Can you take away this grief?"
"I'm sorry," she replied quietly. "Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for."

I have done nothing wrong, she thought again. It might be useful to keep that firmly in mind. But I have been stupid, too, and I shall have to remember that as well.


And where they had gone wrong was in believing, somewhere in their minds, that because two things were different, they must therefore be alike. Slowing finding out this wasn't true hadn't been nice for either of them.


If you think you're not good enough, then you are already no kind of witch.


Tiffany thought, Is this the right song for a funeral? And then she thought, Of course it is! It's a wonderful tune and it tells us that one day all of us will die but--and this is the important thing--we are not dead yet.

In "Monstrous Regiment":

"All we were given was a chance, thought Polly. No miracle, no rescue, no magic. Just a chance."

In "Thud":

People who probably weren't bad could kill you.

He peered into what was now no longer blackness but merely gloom, and gloom was like daylight after the darkness that had gone before.

From "Mort":

It would have worried Mort if he'd let it. Someone was expecting him. He'd learned in recent days, though, that rather than drown in uncertainty it was best to surf right over the top of it.

"I reckoned that if enough people believed in her, they could change reality." (...) "Let's suppose you went out of here and prowled around the palace. One of the guards would probably see you and he'd think you were a thief and he'd fire his crossbow. I mean, in his reality you'd be a thief. It wouldn't actually be true but you'd be just as dead as if it was."

From Sourcery:
"It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong."