A few days back, I came across a thread on Mastodon where people were sharing great opening lines of books. I pitched in with the following opening lines from Discworld:
“THE SUN ROSE slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.” - from The Light Fantastic.
“THIS IS WHERE the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world. And Fate always wins.” - from Interesting Times.
So to all Discworld fans out here, pitch in with some Discworld quotes, be it starting lines or anything else. Or even just talk about your favourite books in the series. Let’s have some fun!
This is another one:
“I meant,” said Ipslore bitterly, “what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?”…
Death thought about it. “CATS” he said eventually. “CATS ARE NICE.”
-Terry Pratchett (Sourcery).
AND….
GNU PTERRY
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There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What’s up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don’t think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who’s been pinching my beer? And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman’s eye.
- The Truth
The current state of knowledge can be summarized thus: in the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.
“Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.”
It just so happened that the person who introduced me to Discworld started me off on the Witches books, and given that I was about 13 at the time they were pretty formative years. As a result a decent chunk of my personality is based on a weird combo of the three, Granny Weatherwax in particular, and you’ll often find me ranting that I “don’t hold with” or “can’t be having with” something despite not in fact being an elderly Lancashire woman myself.
For some reason that quote from Wyrd Sisters is just the first one that I remember remembering, if that makes sense? Like the first one I would just quote in relevant situations as a teenager. It’s not super deep or special to me beyond that, but I’ll always remember it and those early days of discovering the series. Just super nostalgic.
WHERE IS MY COW!
Glad I didn’t have to go far for this one.
Such a silly line without context, and yet it makes me tear up every time.
Is this from Snuff? Or am I confusing with another book? I remember that Vimes used to read this to his son and there is a whole scene where Vimes is trudging through the Underground caves shouting “where is my cow” towards the end of the book.
Thud!
Oh OK thanks!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
GNU PTERRY
“It’s not a —ing harpsichord, it’s a —ing virginal,” growled Mr. Tulip. “One —ing string to a note instead of two! So called because it was an instrument for —ing young ladies!”
“My word, was it?” said one of the chairs. “I thought it was just a sort of early piano!”
The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors.
CMOT Dibbler: The by-name of quality. With a man like Dibbler you can say “bye” to quality.
“The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.”
GNU PTERRY
This is great! This whole thread has been such a nostalgic experience. Now I want to start a re-read of Discworld as soon as possible.
DARK IN HERE, ISNT IT
“I ATEN’T DEAD”
Oh I love this one.
I love the long-running sentences that still make perfect sense like
“The Bursar hadn’t got where he was today, or rather where he had been ten seconds ago, which was where a calm and self-assured personality was, rather than where he was now, which was on the verge of a mild heart attack, without a tremendous ability to recover from unexpected upsets.”
-Moving Pictures
Or anything said by the witches
“Everywhere’s been where it is ever since it was first put there. It’s called geography.”
-Nanny Ogg, Wyrd Sisters
