Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.
When people recount their favourite Terry Pratchett quotes, they tend to concentrate on the hilarious and sarcastic and silly. And, you know, he was good at that. But if he'd merely been one of the funniest writers on the planet, he wouldn't've been half as successful. What made him truly great — the reason he got accused of literature — was stuff like the above, from Small Gods.
I miss Terry Pratchett.
Well said!
ReplyDeleteThe cover artwork and the thick-and-fast puns do a good job of camouflaging some of the most accurate and trenchant satire and social comment around.
If I may offer my favourite (and perhaps particularly topical) example:
"Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.”