On “The Other Place” I remember seeing lots of threads about your favourite line, joke or quote in the series. And those threads were fun, but ultimately it’s always the heavy hitters being repeated over and over.

So my question to you, Lemmings and Kbinauts, is what is your favourite underrated line in the series? Something that makes you laugh, or makes you think, every time but you never see talked about?

Yes, this whole thread is just an excuse to post about how much I adore the following description from Moving Pictures:

It looked like a large, ornate pot, almost as high as a man of large pot height.

Honourable mention goes to my second fave, also in fact from Moving Pictures and the best side character in the series:

Sunnink dreadful in there, he thought. Prob’ly tentacled fings that rips your face off. I mean, when you finds mysterious doors in old hills, stands to reason wot comes out ain’t going to be pleased to see you. Evil creatures wot Man shouldn’t wot of, and here’s one dog wot don’t want to wot of them either.

I’ve read both of these gods know how many times, and still laugh out loud every single time.

Go on, share your favourites!

  • @systemshock
    9•2 years ago

    This one from Pyramids:

    The fact is that camels are far more intelligent than dolphins. They are so much brighter that they soon realised that the most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendants not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships or being patronized rigid by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don’t find out about it. So they long ago plumped for a lifestyle that, in return for a certain amount of porterage and being prodded with sticks, allowed them adequate food and grooming and the chance to spit in a human’s eye and get away with it.

    Always loved the idea that animals are just making idiots of us and using us for their own purposes.

    • xuxebiko
      4•2 years ago

      Terry was so clever here in telling us that humans are super-shitty to animals and making us agree that yes we do deserve to be spat on by them.

      No one did dark humour better than him. GNU PTerry.

    • @[email protected]OP
      3•2 years ago

      I think this concept comes up again in later books too, right? Maybe Jingo is what I’m thinking of but then again maybe not. Anyway, I’ve always liked this idea too and have definitely repeated it irl as a genuine theory to various bemused bystanders.

      You ever use a quote or concept so much you forget you didn’t make it up yourself? Maybe that’s a whole other thread topic in itself lol.

      • xuxebiko
        2•2 years ago

        Vimes “Boots” theory is like that for me. A semester course worth of socioeconomics in 1 line.

        The Boots theory from Men at Arms - “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

      • @systemshock
        1•2 years ago

        I think this concept comes up again in later books too, right?

        Yeah, pretty sure as well, but can’t remember when and where.

        You ever use a quote or concept so much you forget you didn’t make it up yourself?

        Hahaha, yeah. It has been known to happen.