It's enough to make a (witch's) cat laugh! Some
quips and quotes of witchy humour to entertain (and inform) you
.......WIT(CH)ICISMS
....... to make you smile (and think!)
It's enough to make a (witch's) cat laugh! Some
quips and quotes of witchy humour to entertain (and inform) you
.......
|
selected
by our Librarian (see <<< left), who would like
you all to notice that the page caption above is spelt
wrongly! [ s/he's not really into puns or any tinkering with the English language]...... and, Yes! these ARE mostly a lot of quotes from the Discworld Fantasy Novels of Terry Pratchett, whom, Jay strongly suspects, has more than a passing acquaintance with The Craft of The Wise (Wise-craft/Wicce Crafte /Witchcraft) - ancient and modern - or how ELSE could his observations and those of his witchy characters upon it be so uncannily accurate? |
With 11 year's experience of Wicca, Jay can assert that they (Mr. T. Pratchett's writings) are extremely pertinent {or should that be "impertinent" ?!}, and recommends that all Trainee Witches study carefully these pithy quotations - from which they might very well learn some things extremely useful to them in their witchy experiences. Remember, the important thing about being a Witch today is not to take it TOO seriously. It's far better to leave all that SERIOUS 'by-the-book stuff' to Ritual Magicians!!!
Jay, having been previously employed by The Meteorological Office, has been nicknamed "Granny Weatherwax" by her witch friends in Ireland; and discovered retrospectively(to some discomfort and embarassment) on reading Discworld books that many of Granny W's characteristics and sayings uncannily mirror her own - so, not surprisingly, that doughty lady ('Esme') is responsible for many of the quotations given below !!!
Witch Granny (Esmeralda) Weatherwax, along with Nanny (Gytha) Ogg and Magrat Garlick (loosely modelled on the three witches in Macbeth ?) appear in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Novels "Wyrd Sisters", "Equal Rites", "Lords and Ladies", Witches Abroad" and "Maskerade"; all available (as are Terry 's other amazing and amusing works) from publishers Corgi Books and any bookstore. Read, chuckle and enjoy! Laughter is magic !
Web-Page © Jay Rufus. August 1999.
NOTE: Words added in Arial italics below are Jay's, not Terry's.
| QUOTATION: "Witches are not by nature gregarious, at least with other witches, and they certainly don't have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly regarded of the leaders they didn't have." [Unlike Jay, who is not a leader at all ! Her circumstances dictate that she remains a 'Solitary', at least for the time being]. (Terry Pratchett in "Wyrd Sisters"). |
| QUOTATION: "Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There' s a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say'. The natural size of a coven is one. [i.e. a ' Solitary' !]. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it." (Terry Pratchett in "Witches Abroad"). |
| QUOTATION: "Of course Granny Weatherwax made a great play of her independence and self-reliance. But the point about that kind of stuff was that you needed someone around to be proudly independent and self-reliant at. People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people." (Terry Pratchett in " Maskerade") |
| JOKE: History of Medicine 2000 BC -- Here, eat this root. 1000 AD -- That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer. 1850 AD -- That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion. 1940 AD -- That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill. 1985 AD -- That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic. 2000 AD -- Here, eat this root. (relayed through Grotonwitc@aol.com) |
| QUOTATION: "'said Granny (Weatherwax)......You can be as self-assertive as you like, I said, just so long as you do what you're told.' " (Terry Pratchett in "Witches Abroad") |
| QUOTATION: "Granny (Weatherwax) had nothing against fortune-telling provided it was done badly by people with no talent for it.............Granny knew all about fortune-telling. It was harder than the real thing. You needed a good imagination..... " (Terry Pratchett in "Equal Rites") |
| QUOTATION: ...said Granny (Weatherwax) "'...You just hold their hand and people do their own fortune-telling. But there is no need to go around believing it, we'd all be in trouble if we went around believing everything'." (Terry Pratchett in "Equal Rites") |
| QUOTATION: "'Oh, obvious,' said Granny (Weatherwax), 'I'll grant you it is obvious. Trouble is, just because things are obvious doesn't mean they're true.' " (Terry Pratchett in "Wyrd Sisters"). |
| TRADITION: : A Sioux story. The Creator gathered all of Creation and said, "I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality." The eagle said, "Give it to me, I will take it to the moon." The Creator said, "No. One day they will go there and find it." The salmon said, "I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean." "No. They will go there too." The buffalo said, "I will bury it on the Great Plains." The Creator said, "They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there." Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, "Put it inside of them." And the Creator said, "It is done." (relayed through Grotonwitc@aol.com) |
| QUOTATION: "'Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well known fact.' " (Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax in "Wyrd Sisters"). |
| QUOTATION: "Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of people who ever became lost. It was that, just at the moment, while she new exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else." (Terry Pratchett in "Wyrd Sisters"). |
| QUOTATION: " 'Let him be whoever he thinks he is,' she (Granny Weatherwax) said. 'That's all anybody could hope for in this world.' (Terry Pratchett in "Wyrd Sisters"). |
| QUOTATION; "Granny Weatherwax was not a jouster in the lists of love but, as an intelligent onlooker, she knew how the game was played." (Terry Pratchett in "Maskerade") |
| QUOTATION:" Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world's greatests creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn't mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge." (Terry Pratchett in "Wyrd Sisters"). |
| QUOTATION: "Cats are like witches. They don't fight to kill, but to win. There is a difference. There's no point in killing a opponent. That way, they won't know they have lost, and to be a real winner you have to have an opponent who is beaten and knows it." (Terry Pratchett in "Witches Abroad"). |
| QUOTATION: " ...Granny Weatherwax was an old woman only when it suited her purposes." (Terry Pratchett in "Witches Abroad"). |
| QUOTATION:" ...said Granny (Weatherwax), 'If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What's real, what's not real, and what's the difference.' " (Terry Pratchett in "Witches Abroad"). |
| QUOTATION: ...said Granny (Weatherwax), " 'You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it is just a cage...' (Terry Pratchett in "Witches Abroad"). |
| QUOTATION: "She (Granny Weatherwax) hated everything that predestinated people, that fooled them, that made them slightly less then human." (Terry Pratchett in "Witches Abroad") |
| QUOTATION: ON - Fairy Godmothers "'We're the other kind,' said Granny (Weatherwax). 'We're the kind that gives people what they know they really need, not what they think they ought to want.' (Terry Pratchett in "Lords and Ladies") |
| QUOTATION: The opinion of Granny Weatherwax was - "You couldn't set out to be a good witch or a bad witch. It never worked for long. All you could try to be was a witch, as hard as you could." (Terry Pratchett in "Lords and Ladies") |
| QUOTATION: (Granny Weatherwax asking
about ticket prices.)
"'Have you got any special low terms for witches?' (punning reply ...)'Yeah, how about "Meddling, interfering old baggages?' "(Terry Pratchett in "Maskerade") |
| QUOTATION:" Granny (Weatherwax) in her normal state of barely-controlled anger was far more her self." (Terry Pratchett in "Lords and Ladies") |
| QUOTATION: " Granny Weatherwax had never heard of psychiatry and would have had no truck with it even if she had. There are some arts too black even for a witch. ... " (Terry Pratchett in "Maskerade") |
| QUOTATION: "(Granny)'...Like the lie
about masks.' (Nanny) 'What lie about masks?' Granny) ''The way people say they hide faces.' 'They do hide faces,' said Nanny Ogg. (Granny) 'Only the one on the outside.' "(Terry Pratchett in "Maskerade") |
| QUOTATION: "Granny (Weatherwax) was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. (Terry Pratchett in "Maskerade") |
| QUOTATION: " 'No one could say I interfere where I'm not wanted. You won't find anyone callin' me a busybody' "(said Granny Weatherwax). (Terry Pratchett in "Maskerade") |
| QUOTATION: "Oh, I don't want payin',' said Granny ''S bad luck, taking money.' ........ 'No obligation. I wouldn't go around puttin' anyone under obligation, just 'cos I'm a witch.' " (Terry Pratchett in "Maskerade") |
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