That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next.
Interpretation
The quote humorously critiques the futility of dedicating so much effort to magic only to forget its purpose.
Terry Pratchett's quote reflects on the absurdity of spending years mastering magic that ultimately leads to more confusion and ineffectiveness. It highlights the irony that one can invest so much time and energy into something—like learning spells—only to find themselves physically and mentally compromised, unable to enjoy the outcomes of their efforts, suggesting a comedic take on the nature of commitment and knowledge.
In practice
This quote could be used in a comedic speech about the challenges of learning new skills.
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.
It startled him even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute's Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn't stand was a smart-ass.
I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.
You must never imagine, that just because something is funny, it is not also dangerous.
I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.
And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, "I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."
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