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They say there are only two things you can count on ... But that was before DEATH started pondering the existential. Of course, the last thing anyone needs is a squeamish Grim Reaper and soon his Discworld bosses have sent him off with best wishes and a well-earned gold watch. Now DEATH is... read more

Summary edit see section history

On Discworld, Death has started pondering the existential. His superiors decide that it's a good time for him to retire, so they send him off with a nice gold watch. Unfortunately, they don't have a replacement hired yet, which poses a bit of a problem for those who die in the meantime.

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “The post of Senior Wrangler was an unusual one, as was the name itself. In some centers of learning, the Senior Wrangler is a leading philosopher; in others, he's merely someone who looks after horses. The Senior Wrangler at Unseen University was a philosopher who looked like a horse, thus neatly encapsulating all definitions.”
  • “"You? We can't take you," said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian. "You don't know a thing about guerrilla warfare."”
    The Dean
  • “Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organized universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying, "O great table, without whom we are naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.”
  • “I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.”
    DEATH
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
    Highlighted by 71 Kindle customers
  • Occasionally people would climb the mountain and add a stone or two to the cairn at the top, if only to prove that there is nothing really damn stupid that humans won’t do.
    Highlighted by 51 Kindle customers
  • Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there’s nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.
    Highlighted by 48 Kindle customers
  • Inside Every Living Person is a Dead Person Waiting to Get Out…
    Highlighted by 41 Kindle customers
  • In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.
    Highlighted by 39 Kindle customers
  • Everyday took an age to go by, which was odd, because days plural went past like a stampede.
    Highlighted by 37 Kindle customers
  • LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
    Highlighted by 36 Kindle customers
  • Intellectually, Ridcully maintained his position for two reasons. One was that he never, ever, changed his mind about anything. The other was that it took him several minutes to understand any new idea put to him, and this is a very valuable trait in a leader, because anything anyone is still trying to explain to you after two minutes is probably important and anything they give up after a mere minute or so is almost certainly something they shouldn’t have been bothering you with in the first place.
    Highlighted by 34 Kindle customers
  • Ridcully was simple-minded. This doesn’t mean stupid. It just meant that he could only think properly about things if he cut away all the complicated bits around the edges.
    Highlighted by 32 Kindle customers
  • Windle shook his head sadly. Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
    Highlighted by 31 Kindle customers
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Setting & Locations edit see section history

Discworld.

Organizations edit see section history

  • Fresh Start: a mainly undead and casual monsters support society

First Sentence edit see section history

The Morris dance is common to all inhabited worlds in the multiverse.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 11 of 54 in Discworld. (standard series)

Preceded by Moving Pictures, and followed by Witches Abroad.

This is book 126 of 200 in BBC 'Big Read' Top 200 Novels, 2003. (authoritative list)
This is book 2 of 5 in Death of the Discworld. (standard series)

Preceded by Mort, and followed by Soul Music.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Terry Pratchett (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Andreas Brandhorst (Translator) - German

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Victor Gollancz Ltd.
Country: Great Britain
Publication Date: 1991
ISBN: 3442415519
Page Count: 287

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Classification edit see section history


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