Although she was aware that somewhere under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn't mean to say she approved of it.
Interpretation
The quote humorously addresses the contradictions in societal norms regarding modesty and self-image.
In this quote, Terry Pratchett cleverly highlights the absurdity of societal standards of dressing and modesty, suggesting that while one might acknowledge their own physicality beneath layers of clothing, the discomfort with those societal expectations remains. It reflects a comedic take on how individuals navigate their identities in relation to societal norms, often leading to a humorous disconnect between reality and accepted notions of propriety.
In practice
During a discussion on fashion and self-image, this quote can add a light-hearted perspective.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, Damn. I am less nurturing than a desert.
The most terrible fear that anybody should have is not war, is not a disease, not cancer or heart problems or food poisoning - it's a man or a woman without a sense of humor.
Why, dear boy, we don't send wizards to Azkaban just for blowing up their aunts.
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
What is funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously.
I don't get high, but sometimes I wish I did. That way, when I messed up in life I would have an excuse. But right now there's no rehab for stupidity.
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