The Wit & Wisdom of Discworld - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,65
without actually doing so.
*
One of the strange things about eating at Mrs Arcanum’s was that you got more leftovers than you got original meals. That is, there were far more meals made up from what were traditionally considered the prudently usable remains of earlier meals – stews, bubble-and-squeak, curry – than there were meals at which those remains could have originated.
The curry was particularly strange, since Mrs Arcanum considered foreign parts only marginally less unspeakable than private parts and therefore added the curious yellow curry powder with a very small spoon, lest everyone should suddenly tear their clothes off and do foreign things. The main ingredients appeared to be swede and gritty rainwater tasting sultanas and the remains of some cold mutton.
*
The best way to describe Mr Windling would be like this: you are at a meeting. You’d like to be away early. So would everyone else. There really isn’t very much to discuss, anyway. And just as everyone can see Any Other Business coming over the horizon and is already putting their papers neatly together, a voice says ‘If I can raise a minor matter, Mr Chairman …’ and with a horrible wooden feeling in your stomach you know, now, that the evening will go on for twice as long with much referring back to the minutes of earlier meetings. The man who has just said that, and is now sitting there with a smug smile of dedication to the committee process, is as near Mr Windling as makes no difference. And something that distinguishes the Mr Windlings of the universe is the term ‘in my humble opinion’, which they think adds weight to their statements rather than indicating, in reality, ‘these are the mean little views of someone with the social grace of duckweed’.
*
Classically, very few people have considered that cleanliness is next to godliness, apart from in a very sternly abridged dictionary. A rank loincloth and hair in an advanced state of matted entanglement have generally been the badges of office of prophets whose injunction to disdain earthly things starts with soap.
*
‘You don’t think a dress like this would be a bit … forward, do you?’ said Sacharissa, holding the dress against herself.
Rocky looked worried.
You’re quite a lot forward already’ he opined.
Sacharissa’s knowledge of vintages extended just as far as knowing that Chateau Maison was a very popular wine.
Sacharissa pulled a brown leather wallet out of the jacket.
‘Any clue to who he is?’ said William.
‘Er … there’s something done on the leather in pokerwork,’ said Sacharissa.
‘What does it say?’
‘ “Not A Very Nice Person At All”,’ she read. ‘I wonder what kind of person would put that on a wallet?’
‘Someone who wasn’t a very nice person,’ said William.
Death sighed and shook his head.
WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?
The Death of Rats looked up.
SQUEAK, he said.
Death waved a hand dismissively WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
*
‘Oh, I see,’ said Lord Vetinari. ‘You mean you should be free to print what you like?’
‘Well … broadly, yes, sir.’
‘Because that’s in the public interest?’
‘I think so, sir.’
‘Stories about man-eating goldfish and people’s husbands disappearing in big silver dishes?’
‘No, sir. That’s what the public is interested in. We do the other stuff, sir.’
‘Amusingly shaped vegetables?’
‘Well, a bit of that, sir. Sacharissa calls them human interest stories.’
‘About vegetables and animals?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So … we have what the people are interested in, and human interest stories, which is what humans are interested in, and the public interest, which no one is interested in.’
‘Except the public, sir,’ said William, trying to keep up.
‘Which isn’t the same as people and humans?’
‘I think it’s more complicated than that, sir.’
‘Obviously Do you mean that the public is a different thing from the people you just see walking about the place? The public thinks big, sensible, measured thoughts while people run around doing silly things?’
‘I think so. I may have to work on that idea too, I admit.’
*
‘I’m sure we can pull together, sir.’
Lord Vetinari raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, I do hope not, I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.’ He smiled. ‘It’s the only way to make progress.’
*
You think that’s really true?’ William said.
Sacharissa shrugged. ‘Really true? Who knows? This is a newspaper, isn’t it? It just has to be true until tomorrow.’
TIME is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed.