THE LATE LORD OF DISCWORLD

“Where did you say your business was?” said Lezek.

“Is it far?”

No further than the thickness of a shadow, said Death. Where the first primal cell was, there was I also. 
Where man is, there am I.

When the last life crawls under freezing stars, there will I be.

Farewell, Terry Pratchett!

You had a rare genius for storytelling and myth-making that had its roots deep in the centuries-long history of fantasy and legend but which produced exotic flowers blooming in a riot of contemporary satire...

The Discworld is flat and rides on the back of four giant elephants

who stand on the shell of the enormous star turtle...

and is bounded by a waterfall that cascades endlessly into space.
Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything
so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.

But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances

crop up nine times out of ten.

You could be prickly and curmudgeonly and woe-betide the idiot who tested your endurance of folly...

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,

but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance

You battled the demon dementia with courage and humour and gave the bastard a run for its money...

The pen is mightier than the sword... 

if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp

We had several memorable encounters including these two conversations for the BBC World Service...

"There are times when you realise that events are so far out of your control that it is a relief to just sit back and see what happens next – that lovely sense of crystalline relief that there is nothing you can do about it. So, if Death walked in now and put his bony fingers on my arm, I think a sense of hopeful expectation would be about the most I could muster; but there's no point in saying 'Excuse me, there's something I want to finish'! One should take life as it comes ––– that's what Death always does."

"The only reason for walking into the jaws of Death

is so's you can steal his gold teeth."

Terry Pratchett

(1948-2015)