The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

snowfields and purple mountains to the golden daylight creating the world, and mused upon certain aspects of humanity.
    ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘One of the difficult ones.’
    *
    This is the desk of a professional. It is clear that their job is their life. There are … human touches, but these are the human touches that strict usage allows in a chilly world of duty and routine.
    Mostly they’re on the only piece of real colour in this picture of blacks and greys. It’s a coffee mug. Someone somewhere wanted to make it & jolly mug. It bears a rather unconvincing picture of a teddy bear, and the legend ‘To The World’s Greatest Grandad’ and the slight change in the style of lettering on the word ‘Grandad’ makes it clear that this has come from one of those stalls that have hundreds of mugs like this, declaring that they’re for the world’s greatest Grandad/Dad/Mum/Granny/Uncle/ Aunt/Blank. Only someone whose life contains very little else, one feels, would treasure a piece of gimcrackery like this.
    *
    They were not lifeforms. They were … non-lifeforms. They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks, its auditors. They saw to it that things spun and rocks fell.
    And they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn’t have a position in time and space, such as imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot.
    Intelligent life was, therefore, an anomaly. It made the filing untidy. The Auditors hated things like that.
    *
    Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.
    *
    Lobsang heard the dojo master say: ‘Dojo! What is Rule One?’
    ‘Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!’
    *
    If children were weapons, Jason would have been banned by international treaty. Jason had doting parents and an attention span of minus several seconds, except when it came to inventive cruelty to small furry animals, when he could be quite patient. Jason kicked, punched, bit and spat. His artwork had even frightened the life out of Miss Smith, who could generally find something nice to say about any child. He was definitely a boy with special needs. In the view of the staffroom, these began with an exorcism.
    Madam Frout had stooped to listening at the keyhole. She had heard Jason’s first tantrum of the day, and then silence. She couldn’t quite make out what Miss Susan said next.
    When she found an excuse to venture into the classroom half an hour later, Jason was helping two little girls to make a cardboard rabbit.
    Later his parents said they were amazed at the change, although apparently now he would only go to sleep with the light on.
    *
    ‘What precisely was it you wanted, madam?’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’ve left the class doing algebra, and they get restless when they’ve finished.’
    ‘Algebra?’ said Madam Frout, perforce staring at her own bosom, which no one else had ever done. ‘But that’s far too difficult for seven-year-olds!’
    ‘Yes, but I didn’t tell them that and so far they haven’t found out,’ said Susan.

    The class had built a full-size white horse out of cardboard boxes,
    during which time they’d learned a lot about horses and Susan learned about Jason’s remarkably accurate powers of observation. She’d had to take the cardboard tube away from him and explain that this was a polite horse.

    The Stationery Cupboard! That was one of the great battlegrounds of classroom history, that and the playhouse. But the ownership of the playhouse usually sorted itself out without Susan’s intervention, so thatall she had to do was be ready with ointment, a nose-blow and mild sympathy for the losers, whereas the Stationery Cupboard was a war of attrition. It contained pots of powder paint and reams of paper and boxes of crayons and more idiosyncratic items like a spare pair of pants for Billy, who did his best. It also