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