tribute: Thief of Time
For passage 4, I ended up including a lot more than originally intended. The text is only two full pages (top of 74 to bottom of 75) though.
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@@ -556,15 +556,15 @@ But, on the whole, there are worse places to be buried than inside a lion.
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%title Lords and Ladies (12)
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# p. 122 (Harper Torch edition)
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%passage 1
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Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
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Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
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Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
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Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
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Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
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Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
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Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
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Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
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Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
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Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
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Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
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Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
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The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake,
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and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have
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The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake,
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and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have
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changed their meaning.
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No one ever said elves are nice.
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@@ -2988,12 +2988,210 @@ EYES...
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#
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#
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#
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%title Thief of Time (1)
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%title Thief of Time (8)
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%passage 1
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"No running with scythes!"
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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# p. 24 (Harper Torch edition)
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%passage 2
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Silver stars weren't awarded frequently, and gold starts happened less
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than once a fortnight, and were vied for accordingly. Right now, Miss
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Susan selected a silver star. Pretty soon Vincent the Keen would have a
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galaxy of his very own. To give him his due, he was quite disinterested
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in which kind of star he got. Quantity, that was what he liked. Miss
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Susan had privately marked him down as Boy Most Likely To Be Killed One
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Day By His Wife.
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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# p. 53 ('... with the chorus:', '"Do not act...' are separate paragraphs;
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# 'challanger' has been cowed after finding out that the little old
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# man he challanged--for entering the dojo--is actually Lu-Tze)
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%passage 3
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As Lobsang followed the ambling Lu-Tze, he heard the dojo master, who like
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all teachers never missed an opportunity to drive home a lesson, say:
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"Dojo! What is Rule One?"
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Even the cowering challanger mumbled along with the chorus:
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"Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling
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man!"
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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# p. 74-75 (the novices didn't know that the little old man known as Sweeper
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# is actually Lu-Tze; see passage 3 regarding Rule One)
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%passage 4
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One day a group of senior novices, for mischief, kicked over the little
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shrine that Lu-Tze kept beside his sleeping mat.
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Next morning, no sweepers turned up for work. They stayed in their huts
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with the doors barred. After making inquiries, the abbot, who at that time
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was fifty years old again, summoned the three novices to his room. There
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were three brooms leaning against the wall. He spoke as follows:
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"You know that the dreadful Battle of Five Cities did not happen because
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the messenger got there in time?"
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They did. You learned this early in your studies. And they bowed
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nervously, because this was the abbot, after all.
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"And you know then that when the messenger's horse threw a shoe he espied
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a man trudging beside the road carrying a small portable forge and pushing
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an anvil on a barrow?"
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They knew.
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"And you know that man was Lu-tze?"
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They did.
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"Surely you know that Janda Trapp, Grand Master of /Oki-doki/, /Toro-fu/,
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and /Chang-fu/, has only ever yielded to one man?"
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They knew.
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"And you know that man is Lu-Tze?"
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They did.
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"You know the little shrine you kicked over last night?"
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They knew.
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"You know it had an owner?"
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There was silence. Then the brightest of the novices looked up at the
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abbot in horror, swallowed, picked up one of the three brooms, and walked
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out of the room.
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The other two were slower of brain and had to follow the story all the way
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through to the end.
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Then one of them said, "But it was only a sweeper's shrine!"
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"You will take up the brooms and sweep," said the abbot, "and you will
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sweep every day, and you will sweep until the day you find Lu-Tze and dare
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to say 'Sweeper, it was I who knocked over and scattered your shrine and
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now I will in humility accompany you to the dojo on the Tenth Djim, in
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order to learn the Right Way.' Only then, if you are still able, may you
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resume your studies here. Understood?"(1)
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Older monks sometimes complained, but someone would always say: "Remember
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that Lu-Tze's Way is not our Way. Remember he learned everything by
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sweeping unheeded while students were being educated. Remember, he has
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been everywhere and done many things. Perhaps he is a little... strange,
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but remember he walked into a citadel full of armed men and traps and
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nevertheless saw to it that the Pash of Muntab choked innocently on a fish
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bone. No monk is better than Lu-Tze at finding the Time and the Place."
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Some, who did not know, would say: "What is this Way that gives him so
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much power?"
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And they were told: "It is the Way of Mrs. Marietta Cosmopolite, 3 Quirm
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Street, Ankh-Morpork, Rooms To Rent Very Reasonable. No, we don't
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understand it, either. Some subsendential rubbish, apparently."
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(1) And the story continues: The novice who had protested that it was only
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the shrine of a sweeper ran away from the temple; the student who said
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nothing remained a sweeper for the rest of his life; and the student who
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has seen the inevitable shape of the story went, after much agonizing and
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several months of meticulous sweeping, to Lu-Tze and knelt and asked to be
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shown the Right Way. Whereupon the sweeper took him to the dojo of the
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Tenth Djim, with its terrible multibladed fighting machines and its
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fearsome serrated weapons such as the /clong-clong/ and the /uppsi/. The
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story runs that the sweeper then opened a cupboard at the back of the dojo
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and produced a broom and spake thusly: "One hand /here/ and the other
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/here/, understand? People never get it right. Use good, even strokes
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and let the broom do most of the work. Never try to sweep up a big pile,
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you'll end up sweeping every bit of dust twice. Use your dustpan wisely,
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and remember: a small brush for the corners."
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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# p. 102 ('coming here': to the remote mountains where the monks live)
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%passage 5
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"But did not Wen say that if the truth is anywhere, it is everywhere?" said
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Lobsang.
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"Well done. I see you learned /something/, at least. But one day it
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seemed to me that everyone else had decided that wisdom can only be found a
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long way off. So I went to Ankh-Morpork. They were all coming here, so it
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seemed only fair.
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"Seeking /enlightenment/?"
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"No. The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. So while
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I was waiting, it occurred to me that seeking perplexity might be more
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fun," said Lu-Tze. "After all, enlightenment begins where perplexity ends.
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And I found perplexity. And a kind of enlightenment, too. I had not been
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there for five minutes, for example, when some men in an alley tried to
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enlighten me of what little I possessed, giving me a valuable lesson in
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the ridiculousness of material things."
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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# p. 286 (food in general, and chocolate in particular, has proven to be an
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# effective 'weapon' against Auditors who've taken on human form)
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%passage 6
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"Let's get up into Zephyr Street," said Susan.
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"What is there for us?"
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"Wienrich and Boettcher."
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"Who are they?"
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"I think the original Herr Wienrich and Frau Boettcher died a long time ago.
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But the shop still does very good business," said Susan, darting across the
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street. "We need ammunition."
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Lady LeJean caught up.
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"Oh. They make chocolate?" she said.
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"Does a bear poo in the woods?" said Susan and realized her mistake right
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away.(1)
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Too late. Lady LeJean looked thoughtful for a moment.
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"Yes," she said at last. "Yes, I believe that most varities do, indeed,
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excrete, as you suggest, at least in the temperate zones, but there are
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several that--"
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"I mean to say that, yes, they make chocolate," said Susan.
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(1) Teaching small children for any length of time can do this to a
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vocabulary.
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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# p. 308
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%passage 7
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Kaos listened to history.
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There were new words. Wizards and philosophers had found Chaos, which is
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Kaos with his hair combed and a tie on, and had found in the epitome of
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disorder a new order undreamed of. /There are different kinds of rules./
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/From the simple comes the complex, and from the complex comes a different/
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/kind of simplicity. Chaos is order in a mask.../
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Chaos. Not dark, ancient Kaos, left behind by the evolving universe, but
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new, shiny Chaos, dancing in the heart of everything. The idea was
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strangely attractive. And it was a reason to go on living.
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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# p. 355 (starts mid-paragraph, with a clause about eating in class omitted)
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%passage 8
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[...] Susan [...] took the view that, if there were rules, they applied to
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everyone, even her. Otherwise they were merely tyranny. But rules were
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there to make you think before you broke them.
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[Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett]
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%e passage
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%e title
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#
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#
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