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Book: A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction
Quotes of Book: A Slip of the Keyboard:
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  1. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    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.
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  2. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    More than half the skill of writing lies in tricking the book out of your own head.
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  3. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    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.
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  4. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    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.
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  5. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    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"?
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  6. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    I'm just capable of entertaining the fantastic idea that, in certain circumstances, might actually be capable of thinking. It must be worth a go, since we've tried everything else.
    book-quotelife-lessonspeopleliving

  7. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    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.
    book-quotejusticefantasyhumanism

  8. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    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.
    book-quotereadinghow-we-teach-reading-to-children

  9. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

    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.
    book-quotescienceuniversehumour

  10. Terry Pratchett _ A Slip of the Keyboard:

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