Mr Pratchett is a gentleman, a scholar and an acrobat, and was good enough to sign my copies of Interesting Times and Hogfather last time he was up our local Dillons. My good friend Pete Williams preferred to engage the Master with a conversation about the concept of pubic wigs. Perhaps it's this which leads me to conclude that many people I know need what can best be termed as help, or at the very least, large amounts of voltage.
[ Anyway, on with the quotes: ]
"With the exception of Penny Falls and those crane things that give you three microseconds to trry to snatch a stuffed elephant and in which the controls don't actually correspond to the movements of the grabber bucket, I don't understand arcade games at all. I generally can't even figure out where to insert the money or, once inserted, how to make the game start. If by some miracle I manage to surmount these two obstacles, I invariably fail to recognise that the game has come to life and that I am wasting precious seconds feeling in remote coin-return slots and searching for some button that says 'Start'. Then I have thirty confused seconds of being immersed in some frantic mayhem without having the faintest idea what's going on, while my children shout, "You've just blown up Princess Leila, you stupid shit!" and then it says 'Game Over'."
—Bill Bryson, "Notes from a Small Island"
"I can't say why, exactly, but Chinese restaurants make me oddly uneasy, particularly when I am dining alone. I always feel that the waitress is saying, 'One beef satay and fried rice for the imperialist dog at table five.'"
—Bill Bryson, "Notes from a Small Island"
"Here are instructions for being a pigeon.
—Bill Bryson, "Notes from a Small Island"
"Cats are nasty cruel bastards but that's because they are cats. As far as we know, they have no grasp of the concept of not being nasty cruel bastards. Humans, on the other hand, do."
—Terry Pratchett, quoted in the apf-7a
"This morning I had meetings with Cabinet colleagues and others and at lunchtime I had a naked Filipino lass lowered onto my honourable member in a revolving split-cane basket. Oh damn, now what have I said? I resign."
—"The Greatest Show off Earth", Robert Rankin
[ Robert Rankin's greatest skill is to tie together many, many insane ideas into a semblance of a plot, and then avoid it completely with sentences like the above, all without losing you after page 3. Excellent stuff, and I really must get around to reading more of it. ]
CAVEAT Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous.
Do not attempt it in your own home.
—from the preface to "Good Omens", by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
"Drop your gun," said Anathema, behind him, "or I shall regret what I shall have to do next."
Well, it's true, she thought as she saw the man stiffen in terror. If he doesn't drop the gun he'll find out this is a stick, and I shall really regret having to be shot.
—"Good Omens", Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
A man threw himself through the window, a knife between his teeth, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other.
"I glaim gis oteg id der gaing og der—" he paused. He took the knife out of his mouth and began again. "I claim this hotel in the name of the pro-Turkish Liberation Faction!"
—
The pianist stood up, reached into his piano, and pulled out a vintage sub-machine gun. "This hotel has already been claimed by the pro-Greek Territorial Brigade!" he screamed. "Make one false move, and I shoot out your living daylight!"
There was a motion at the door. A huge, black-bearded individual with a golden smile and a genuine antique Gatling gun stood there, with a cohort of equally huge although less impressive armed men behind him.
"This strategically important hotel, for years a symbol of the fascist imperialist Turko-Greek running dog tourist trade, is now the property of the Italo-Maltese Freedom Fighters!" he boomed affably. "Now we kill everybody!"
"Rubbish!" said the pianist. "Is not strategically important. Just has extremely well-stocked wine cellar!"
"He's right, Pedro," said the man with the Kalashnikov, "That's why my lot wanted it. Il General Ernesto de Montoya said to me, he said, Fernando, the war'll be over by Saturday, and the lads'll be wanting a good time. Pop down to the Hotel de Palomar del Sol and claim it as booty, will you?"
The bearded man turned red. "Is bloddy important strategically, Fernando Chianti! I drew a big map of the island and is right in the middle, which makes it pretty bloddy strategically important, I can tell you."
"Ha!" said Fernando. "You might as well say that just because Little Diego's house has a view of the decadent capitalist topless private beach, that's it's strategically important!"
The pianist blushed a deep red. "Our lot got that this morning," he admitted.
—"Good Omens", Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
[ Okay, I think that's enough, or I'll have transcripted the entire flippin' book, and that really wouldn't be legal. Go out and buy it now! Trust me, you won't regret it—it is all at least as good as this! It's the best book about Armageddon ever, and I've avoided giving away any of the plot (such as it is, or likes to pretend it is for special occasions), so it's not like you have an excuse or anything! ]