It looked the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed,' although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had beed badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.
Interpretation
The quote humorously describes a book that appears to have been through a lot of wear and tear.
In this quote, Terry Pratchett playfully uses exaggerated imagery to illustrate the condition of a book that has endured significant damage and neglect. The whimsical choice of animals like 'badgered', 'wolved', and 'beared' suggests that the book has not only been read but aggressively handled, evoking a humorous mental image that reflects the author's unique writing style and creative descriptions.
In practice
In a discussion about the joys of reading, one might say, 'It looked the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed'...' to emphasize the character of well-loved books.
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.
There were people asking 'Can women be funny?' People still ask that. It's like asking: 'Can women breathe in and out?'
The one unforgivable sin is to be boring.
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.
Sometimes the funnier you are, the more vulnerable and scared you are underneath it all. So I think, for me, comedy was always a defense. It was a weapon so that you can't hurt me.
Dogs need to sniff the ground; it's how they keep abreast of current events. The ground is a giant dog newspaper, containing all kinds of late-breaking dog news items, which, if they are especially urgent, are often continued in the next yard.
I've been playing the game so long that my handicap is in Roman numerals.
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