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A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction QUOTES

A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction QUOTES

1 " You want fantasy? Here's one... There's this species that lives on a planet a few miles above molten rock and a few miles below a vacuum that'd suck the air right out of them. They live in a brief geological period between ice ages, when giant asteroids have temporarily stopped smacking into the surface. As far as they can tell, there's nowhere else in the universe where they could stay alive for ten seconds.
And what do they call their fragile little slice of space and time? They call it real life. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

2 " Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the possibility that evil can be defused by talking. The fantasy of justice is more interesting than the fantasy of fairies, and more truly fantastic. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

3 " Before you can kill the monster you have to say its name. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

4 " And I went on reading; and, since if you read enough books you overflow, I eventually became a writer. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

5 " Escapism isn't good or bad of itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to. I write from experience, since in my case I escaped to the idea that books could be really enjoyable, an aspect of reading that teachers had not hitherto suggested. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

6 " But it’s what I call “The Valley Filled with Clouds” technique. You’re at the edge of the valley, and there is a church steeple, and there is a tree, and there is a rocky outcrop, but the rest of it is mist. But you know that because they exist, there must be ways of getting from one to the other that you cannot see. And so you start the journey. And when I write, I write a draft entirely for myself, just to walk the valley and find out what the book is going to be all about. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

7 " Sitting in front of a keyboard and a screen is work. Thousands of offices operate on this very principle. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

8 " Not long ago I was invited to a librarians’ event by a lady who cheerfully told me, “We like to think of ourselves as ‘information providers.’” I was appalled by this want of ambition; I made my excuses and didn’t go. After all, if you have a choice, why not call yourselves “Shining Acolytes of the Sacred Flame of Literacy in a Dark and Encroaching Universe”? I admit this is hard to put on a button, so why not abbreviate it to “librarians”? "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

9 " Apply logic in places where it wasn’t intended to exist. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

10 " My first novel was published by the first publisher I sent it to. And so I’ve been learning as I go, and I find it now rather embarrassing that people beginning the Discworld series start with The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which I don’t think are some of the best books to start with. This is the author saying this, folks. Do not start at the beginning with Discworld. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

11 " More than half the skill of writing lies in tricking the book out of your own head. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

12 " I'd better say at the start that I don't actually believe in magic any more than I believe in astrology, because I'm a Taurean and we don't go in for all that weirdo occult stuff. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

13 " But most of all in the last couple of years I have been listening. As a journalist, I learned to listen. It is amazing how much people will tell you if you listen in the right way. Rob, my PA, says that I can listen like a vacuum cleaner. Always beware of somebody who is a really good listener. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

14 " Contrary to popular belief, fantasy is not about making things up. The world is stuffed full of things. It is almost impossible to invent any more. No, the role of fantasy as defined by G. K. Chesterton is to take what is normal and everyday and usual and unregarded, and turn it around and show it to the audience from a different direction, so that they look at it once again with new eyes. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

15 " I’ve never had occasion to use one magnificent tip from a well-known author, but I pass it on anyway: “Keep an eye on the trade press. When an editor moves on, immediately send your precious MS to his or her office, with a covering letter addressed to said departed editor. Say, in the tones of one engaged in a cooperative effort, something like this: ‘Dear X, I was very pleased to receive your encouraging letter indicating your interest in my book, and I have made all the changes you asked for.…’ Of course they won’t find the letter. Publishers can never find anything. But at least someone might panic enough to read the MS. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

16 " Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does James Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

17 " I'm just capable of entertaining the fantastic idea that, in certain circumstances, Homo sapiens might actually be capable of thinking. It must be worth a go, since we've tried everything else. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

18 " So, instead, I give tips on how to be a professional boxer. A good diet is essential, of course, as is a daily regime of exercise. Pay attention to your footwork, it will often get you into trouble. Go down to the gym every day – every day of your life that finds you waking up capable of standing. Take every opportunity to watch a good professional fight. In fact watch as many bouts as you can, because you can even learn something from the fighters who get it wrong. Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do. And don’t forget the diet and the exercise and the roadwork.

Got it? Well, becoming a writer is basically exactly the same thing, except that it isn’t about boxing. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

19 " We spray our fantasies on the landscape like a dog sprays urine. It turns it into ours. Once we’ve invented our gods and demons, we can propitiate or exorcize them.

Once we’ve put fairies in the sinister solitary thorn tree, we can decide where we stand in relation to it; we can hang ribbons on it, see visions under it—or bulldoze it up and call ourselves free of superstition. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction

20 " Of course fantasy is escapist. Most stories are. So what? Teachers are not meant to be jailers. "

― Terry Pratchett , A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction