The Woman Who Died a Lot

Do I have to talk to insane people?" "You're a librarian now. I'm afraid it's mandatory.

Do you really think you'd win a PR war against a bunch of committed librarians?' He thought about this, but he knew I was right. The libraries were a treasured institution and so central to everyday life that government and commerce rarely did anything that might upset them.Some say they were more powerful than the military, or, if not, they were certainly quieter. As they say: Don't mess with librarians. Only they use a stronger word than 'mess'...

Everything comes to an end. A good bottle of wine, a summer’s day, a long-running sitcom, one’s life, and eventually our species. The question for many of us is not that everything will come to an end but when. And can we do anything vaguely useful until it does?

He spent his life immersed in books to the cost of everything else, even personal relationships. "Friends," he'd once said, "are probably great, but I have forty thousands friends of my own already, and each of them needs my attention.

Librarying is a harder profession than the public realizes, he said. People think it's all rubber stamps, knowing that Dewey 521 is celestial mechanics and saying 'Try looking under fiction' sixty eight times a day.

I wasn't particularly worried; running is overrated anyway, and sport only makes you sweaty and smug and wears out the knees.

My only companion from the outside world during nineteen years of isolation has been my personal hatred of Thursday Next. It's kind of like the old me suddenly taking over, and I promised myself that this was how I would act if I ever saw you.' 'I have the same thing, but with Tom Stoppard,' I said. 'You'd kill Tom Stoppard?' 'Not at all. I promised myself many years ago that I would throw myself at his feet and scream "I'm not worthy!" if I ever met him, so now if we're ever at the same party or something, I have to be at pains to avoid him. It would be undignified, you see—for him and for me.

I've got an idea,' I said. 'I'll just turn up tomorrow morning and start having meetings until my brain turns to jelly. Then we'll stop and I'll hide for a bit, then do some more while thinking of other things, then forget it all by the evening, and we'll do pretty much the same thing again the day after that—and rely on subordinates and assistants to deal with actually running the place.' 'Thank goodness for that,' said Duffy with a sigh of relief. 'I was worried you had no experience of running a large public department.

Ninjas are far more important to science than anyone realises. If we could capture one to study, I think most of science’s biggest puzzles might be resolved.

Our own dimension was coded ID-11 and was the only League member with diphtheria, David Hasselhoff and the French, which amused the rest of the multiverse no end.

To me, grass is simply a transitional phase for turning sunlight into milk.

Joffy had decided many years before that the problem with religion wasn’t religion itself but its flagrant misuse as an absolutist argument to promote narrow tribal agendas.

All of everything came into existence simply because it wanted to be. The big bang wasn't so much a big bang as a hasty dash toward an opportunity to trade nothingness for somethingness. The main contributory factor to the entire universe was a momentary effect in need of a cause.

Are you okay?" asked Finisterre. "Annoyed," I said, giving him my hand so he could heave me to my feet. "Yes, I should imagine being attacked by a nun might be annoying.

The dismantling of S0-27 had some peculiar and unforeseen consequences, not least the legalizing of lethal force within libraries “for the maintenance of the collections and public order.” Originally intended as a deterrent to thieves, the legislation quickly became known as the “Shush Law,” when overenthusiastic librarians invoked a “violent intervention” for loud talking. Libraries have never been quieter, and theft and vandalism dropped by 72 percent.

That’s the point about failure,” I said. “It’s an intrinsic part of success. You win some, then you lose some. But with experience and luck, you learn to lose less as the years go on.

Mrs. Hilly had gone for the Swindon/Szechuan fusion menu and had steak and chips dim sum followed by hot Fanta in a teapot.

Tangling with the Goliath Corporation generally left you in one of two places: inside a wooden box with a grieving family outside, or inside a wooden box under six foot of soil with family wondering where you were. The former was if they didn't hold a grudge.

Besides, I punched him in the eye.

For God’s sake, Mother,” he said in an exasperated tone, “is there nothing dumb, daft or dangerous that you haven’t tried at some point?

Smart girls give me the horn too,” said Gavin sadly. “But they always ignore me. Tuesday ignores me.

solve all our energy problems by inducing power from the sun’s magnetic field via a sixty-thousand-mile tether being towed behind a space station anchored gravitationally at Lagrange One.

First you say you’re fine, then you say you’re not. We call it “Hamlet Syndrome”- an attempt to get your own way by feigning insanity, generally by saying what comes into your head and dithering a lot. Mind you,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘it works a lot better if you’re a prince.

That’s a start,” she said. “I’d also like you to review the rules regarding spine bending and turning over the corners of pages. If we let simple things like that slide without punishment, we could open the floodgates to poor reading etiquette and a downward spiral to the collapse of civilization.

I don't really get the whole intellect-through-isolation thing," I said. "I'm not sure anyone can claim to understand the human condition until he's talked two people out of a fight, smoothed over a best friend's marital breakup or dealt effectively with a teenager's huffy silence

The room didn’t contain a large jar as Landen had suggested, but rather a human-size sarcophagus made out of Tupperware to ensure freshness.

I arrived at the Swindon branch of TJ-Maxx at a little after two. I knew as well as anyone that the store hadn’t been deliberately set up as a bargain store for end-of-line designer garments, but rather as a high-security facility for the imprisonment of dangerous criminals.

The opposition Prevailingwind Party led by Alfredo Traficcone

Before, I suspected I might not amount to anything, and now I now I won't, so at least it takes away the wearisome burden of delusive hope