I can believe anything…
May 17th, 2008 by timelady
…provided it is incredible.
Terry Pratchett writes some of the funniest books ever. The Discworld series is utter genius. One of the things that makes them so brilliant is that they aren’t just incredibly, wittily, ridiculously funny, they are searingly, bitingly observant. I give you an excerpt from Hogfather:
Death: Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They’re not the same at all.
Death: 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, you try to 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.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what’s the point?
Death: You need to believe in things that aren’t true. How else can they become?
Clair Says
I haven’t read the Hogfather yet. And now I am reminded to check out the Terry Pratchett books on sale on avalon.ph
By the way, I read Mort and was so amused as to how he grew up with Death. I love the humor in his books. 
May 20th, 2008 at 3:39 am