“People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.”

Terry Pratchett

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“Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.”


“History isn't like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always - eventually - manages to spring back into its old familar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a long time.”


“It's lies. It's all lies. Some of them are just prettier than others, that's all. People see what they think is there.”


“They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.”


“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.”


“But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self-reliant. People who didn’t need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn’t need people.”