Margery Harrison > Margery's Quotes

“Only once you destroy who you think you are can you embrace who you truly are.”
― Soman Chainani, The School for Good and Evil

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
― Mark Twain

“The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“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. ”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth: Stage Adaptation

“Like young men from the dawn of time, I decided to choose the risk of death over certain humiliation.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground

“Right from the start Abigail used to moan and fidget as her hair was relaxed or braided or thermally reconditioned, but her dad was determined that his child wasn’t going to embarrass him in public. That all stopped when Abigail turned eleven and calmly announced that she had ChildLine on speed‑dial and the next person who came near her with a hair extension, chemical straightener, or, God forbid, a hot comb, was going to end up explaining their actions to Social Services.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground

“As Conan the Barbarian famously said, “That which does not kill us does not kill us.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground

“I wasn't sure I found that particularly reassuring, but in the event of an attack I wasn't going to be as much use as Thomas 'Oh sorry, was that your Tiger Tank?' Nightingale.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“The Folly had last been refurbished in the 1930s when the British establishment firmly believed that central heating was the work, if not of the devil per se, then definitely evil foreigners bent on weakening the hardy British spirit.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“Peter Grant,’ I said. ‘Recent arrival, slacker and man of very little fame.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“It's a sad fact of modern life that sooner or later you will end up on YouTube doing something stupid. The trick, according to my dad, is to make a fool of yourself to the best of your ability.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“You don’t get to be a senior investigating officer unless you have a degree in scepticism, an MA in distrust and your CV lists suspicious bastard under your hobbies.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“I didn’t tell him that it was all stored as binary information on rapidly spinning shiny discs, partly because I’d have to look up the details myself, but mostly because by the time he’d understood the technology it would have been replaced by something else.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“What's it a charm for?' she asked.

The man thought about this for a moment.

'It's your basic all-enveloping protection charm,' he said, his hands describing a cupped circle in the air. 'For protection against...'
'Envelopes?' said Abigail.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“I had found the upper limit of my courage. Fortunately for me, there is no known lower limit to human stupidity.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“Phillip told me proudly that his mum had ceased to be a practicing Catholic the day after he came out. “She says she will go back to the Church the day it apologizes,” he said.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

“Self-deprecation has splash damage.”
― Natalie Zina Walschots, Hench

“I have to ask, sir...Why does it have to be done like this?"
Vetinari smiled. "Can you keep a secret, Mister Lipwig?"
"Oh, yes, sir. I've kept lots."
"Capital. And the point is, so can I. You do not need to know.”
― Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam

“He didn't administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.”
― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

“You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you're good at that, I'll grant you. But the trouble is it's the only thing you're good at. One day it's the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it's everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one's been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It's part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don't seem to have the knack.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Shall I tell you good Witcher, what good people are ? They're people whom fate hasn't blessed with the chance of profiting from the benefits of being evil”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Season of Storms

“Cats, as you know, are quite impervious to threats.”
― Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog

“The reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over.”
― Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog

“You'd help if you could, wouldn't you, boy?" I said. "It's no wonder they call you man's best friend. Faithful and loyal and true, you share in our sorrows and rejoice with us in our triumphs, the truest friend we ever have known, a better friend than we deserve. You have thrown in your lot with us, through thick and thin, on battlefield and hearthrug, refusing to leave your master even when death and destruction lie all around. Ah, noble dog, you are the furry mirror in which we see our better selves reflected, man as he could be, unstained by war or ambition, unspoilt by-”
― Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog

“I wanted to come, and if I hadn’t, they would have been all alone, and nobody would have ever known how frightened and brave and irreplaceable they were.”
― Connie Willis, Doomsday Book

“Come here, cat. You wouldn’t want to destroy the space-time continuum, would you? Meow. Meow.”
― Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog

“What's Management up to?" I whispered to Bennett.
"My guess is a new acronym," he whispered. "Departmental Unification Management Business." He wrote down the ltters on his legal pad. "D.U.M.B.”
― Connie Willis, Bellwether

“1. Optimize potential.
2. Facilitate empowerment.
3. Implement visioning.
4. Strategize priorities.
5. Augment core structures.”
― Connie Willis, Bellwether

“But you can't ever imagine what you're going to care about when you turn into the version of you that’s waiting on the other side of five years from now. That’s a stranger waiting to ambush you, and all you can do is plant your feet and try not to get thrown.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Past Is Red