I was having a conversation with a fellow pastor about Terry Pratchett, and I called him one of the great humanists of our time- not as an atheist, but as someone who centered and explored humanity deftly and with compassion.
She put it better, she said "He deeply loved and believed in humanity."
He did. He saw our flaws with clarity and wrote about them without sugarcoating, but he also really loved humans, even or especially when we're dumbfucks. He was absolutely furious about injustice and convinced that humanity was worthwhile anyway. There's a lot of grace in there.
And the takeaway for me is that firstly, I think he was right, and secondly, it's good for me to nurture this way of thinking & feeling about other humans. Maybe it is just as much of a fantasy as truth and justice, but if it is, we need to believe it into existence just as hard.
This is the only Discworld quote that I have pinned to my wall. This is because it is the best quote. The purest embodiment of its worldview, of everything that makes the series so incredible.
Rereading this year I’m a lot more struck by what we’ve done with our accreting belief and a much more stark fear of the Auditors. But still: +++All Things Strive+++
Auditors = AI pushers. Just boil it down to patterns and you'll get Shakespeare without effort. No you won't, you will get words on a page. Not the same thing.
Wonderful! As I get older it strikes me with increasing frequency/resonance how so much of our daily life experience is built upon/connected to "stories" that we consciously (or - WAY more often) unconsciously tell ourselves. It's been way too long since I read Pratchett: I really need to revisit.
The more I read Pratchett’s work, the more I wish I could have had a drink with the man. His thoughts on life, which come out in his stories, are the same thoughts that I think silently, but can’t always articulate to others. That is the skill of a great writer, to articulate the important thoughts.
This is, without doubt, my absolute favourite Discworld quote. As someone raised as a fantasy reader, and who pretends at being a writer of such, this quote spoke to me.
Watched Miracle on 34th last night (first time). When Doris Walker was explaining why she doesn't tell Susan about Santa and other fairy stories - I was yelling this at the tv.
There's a reason that man will be missed by hundreds of thousands of people who never met him. He put to words what so many of the world didn't even see.
The moment my own writing was compared to Pratchett is one of the proudest I've ever had, no matter how wrong it is.
As beautiful and true as this passage is, I think it also highlights the anger that he stated drove the Discworld. Death speaks in all caps, to highlight how his voice sounds. But it otherwise often denotes shouting. I feel like this is Pratchett grabbing us by the lapels and screaming...
...and shouting that we *have* to believe in these concepts, or else they cannot become. We have to believe in truth, freedom, [reasonably priced] love, justice, mercy, etc, because they do not otherwise exist. And we deserve them. We *need* them. Otherwise balls of flaming gas illuminate rocks...
We're adopting these Little Guys on New Year's - bonded buddies from different rescue sites. I've been thinking of Captain Carrot for the orange boi as he apparently marched in, declared shy B&W kitten his new BFF & has squired him around since. Not sure of a Pratchett name for shy guy though....
Late to reply, but: when we were deciding if we were going to do the Santa thing with the 8-year-old, this was our answer. "Well, PTerry said it was important."
Weatherwax's definition of Sin is still one of my moral guiding stars.
(Though Ursula Vernon/@tkingfisher.com 's definition of Evil in Digger is another one, and at the same level as Weatherwax's definition of Sin, I think!)
I may go and complete one of my Discworld jigsaws, then again considering the amount of gin and now port taken onboard it might not be the brightest idea.
and while I very much hope she’s happier offline, a happy Hogswatch, wherever she is, to Chinchillazilla, without whom I never would have started this series
So many of these passages (Granny Weatherwax explaining to Pastor Oats that treating people as things is Where It Starts is another). Sad that he isn't more widely read due to his work being fantasy, as if all novels aren't fantasies.
Comments
She put it better, she said "He deeply loved and believed in humanity."
Smokin
It's been Happy Hogswatch for us every year for a while now.
CATS ARE NICE.
https://youtu.be/AVt8duld9Bw?si=VGZ8TT-IZ2DJqKK-
And yes the quote is in it!
Was nice seeing Pratchett with a cameo as the toymaker ❤️
Snouter knows what he did.
𝓕𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓐𝓷𝓰𝓮𝓵
𝓡𝓲𝓼𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓐𝓹𝓮
The moment my own writing was compared to Pratchett is one of the proudest I've ever had, no matter how wrong it is.
merry Hogswatch, everyone
/GNU Terry Pratchett
one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy
a lot of mine boils down to “well, Terry said it best”
Weatherwax's definition of Sin is still one of my moral guiding stars.
(Though Ursula Vernon/@tkingfisher.com 's definition of Evil in Digger is another one, and at the same level as Weatherwax's definition of Sin, I think!)
By which it might be judged indeed.
angry at all the correct things
This leads to endless sorrow
Because of course if the world is fair, then all those fucked-over people just got what was coming to them
(from 2004)
https://freyaanduin.com/tolkien-og-den-mentale-elastik/
"There is no justice. There is just us."
I miss talking Discworld with you, friend
HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?