It's amazing how good governments are, given their track records in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters. One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarrassed to talk about it. It's not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be abductees. Some have been in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops. The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one - who is big, hairy, and has very large feet. The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.
Terry Pratchett
Related This is an ode to life. The anthem of the world. For as there are billions of differe... KAMAND KOJOURI When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you're trudging seems all uphill, ... ANON. Be kind. We never know what people are going through. Give grace and mercy because one day your circ... GERMANY KENT Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber th... ARTHUR C. CLARKE OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn�... KURT VONNEGUT The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with. Scruples are alien to the black panther. Pi... WISłAWA SZYMBORSKA Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo... GERMANY KENT May you find serenity and tranquility in a worl... SANDRA STURTZ HAUSS I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES Jesus in the Temple of God in Jerusalem Matthew 21 12: AND JESUS WENT INTO THE... SWAMI DHYAN GITEN How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine." The Q... LEWIS CARROLL -Desiderata- Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may... MAX EHRMANN This is what I am, I'll say, to leave this written excuse. This is my life. Now it is clea... PABLO NERUDA To be or not to be that is the question. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It's also one of the ways we're going to talk about [how] the aliens might even communicate or be co... DAVID GOYER It's also one of the ways we're going to talk about [how] the aliens might even communicate or be co... DAVID S. GOYER Everything we say and do affects people. It can be either physically or mentally. Words ca... HINA YU Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. What happiness? Here we have a kind of what they call a multiple choice question. 1 MINUTO NA PALMA DA MãO Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track t... JOSEPH CAMPBELL The earth is an arena of champions. We are all champions. We all did overcome millions of potential ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life ... TERRY PRATCHETT WHAT IS TRUTH? Truth is not a thing Or a concept. It is as multidimensional SUZY KASSEM The substance of the attacks on the reality of organized abuse and torture of children always reduce... VALERIE SINASON As you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that your journey be a long one, filled wit... BARRY B. POWELL On Pleasure Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom. It is the... KAHLIL GIBRAN We go from one war to another; we go from one terrorist group to another and we go from one calamity... ANTHONY T. HINCKS So, Orion Dude, you’re an alien?” Stu said, finding it all very funny now. “Hmm. If you�... RUTH WATSON-MORRIS Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the... J.K. ROWLING The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died, furrowing their brows over how many deathbed... MARCUS AURELIUS Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate 'relatio... WENDELL BERRY It's a fact—everyone is ignorant in some way or another. Ignorance is our deepes... VERA NAZARIAN One of the greatest gifts That life can give to anyone Is the very special love that families... CRAIG S. TUNKS Ithaka As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of ... CONSTANTINOS P. CAVAFIS May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are me... TERESA OF ÁVILA when you walk, you look like you’re trying to disappear. your back is gonna be fucked up. CAITLYN SIEHL I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib... C. JOYBELL C. Hive Queen: They never know anything. They don't have enough years in their little lives to come to ... ORSON SCOTT CARD . . . None of us are born as passive generic blobs waiting for the world to stamp its imprint on us.... STEVEN PRESSFIELD No respecter of evidence has ever found the least clue as to what life is all about, and what people... KURT VONNEGUT …Lovers were not, Marina, *are* not permitted to know destruction so deeply. Must be as if th... RAINER MARIA RILKE Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise Hath chid down all the majesty of England; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE An attachment grew up. What is an attachment? It is the most difficult of all the human interrelatio... CORNELL WOOLRICH There is a plain under a dim sky. It is covered with gentle rolling curves that might remind you of ... TERRY PRATCHETT Humans should be grateful if they haven't been in contact with aliens, while humans are still m... TOBA BETA Some things cannot be fixed; they can only be carried. Grief like yours, love like yours, can only b... MEGAN DEVINE The following are not my words, i have seen it some where . But i wish to share it here for every on... ANOOP ASHOK And this is why you don’t want me to be friends with Dee, because you were afraid that I’d find ... JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT Souls" When two souls fall in love, there is nothing else but the yearning to be close to ... LANG LEAV There is a folk-tale about a shoemaker and his wife who were so poor that they had to send their man... GYULA ILLYéS Readin' all those books makes me wonder whether anyone ever dies natural." " They... RICHMAL CROMPTON That—this—is Orion’s secret. It’s not that the ship isn’t working, that we’re never goin... BETH REVIS The Clock on the Morning Lenape Building Must Clocks be circles? Time is not a circl... JERRY SPINELLI Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH For Equilibrium, a Blessing: Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore, May the relief ... JOHN O'DONOHUE The New Dimension is peaceful, and all work here just as they do on Earth. It’s a place where lear... SOLON You are aware of only one unrest; Oh, never learn to know the other! Two souls, alas, are ... JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Valuing names as they do, Realists are sparing with them. They are likely to be known only as Joe or... ALEXEI PANSHIN ... the irregularities of the motion of Uranus...in order to find out whether they may be attributed... JOHN COUCH ADAMS Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one n... CLARENCE DARROW But what I would like to know," says Albert, "is whether there would not have been a war if th... ERICH MARIA REMARQUE Novelists congratulate themselves on their creation of this kind of “character” or that kind of ... SōSEKI NATSUME Sign The Truth of Sign is Simple. Sign Word is one but meaning are different. s... PRADEEP There are only so many of us born at a time and we are thrown into the world to find each other, to ... PLEASEFINDTHIS What remains of the dead? What remains of every one of us? Tombstones sink in, moss cove... DMITRY GLUKHOVSKY THOMAS Guilty Of mankind. I have perpetrated human nature. My father and... CHRISTOPHER FRY How they are all about, these gentlemen In chamberlains' apparel, stocked and laced, Like ... RAINER MARIA RILKE BLACK AND WHITE I was born into A religion of Light, But with so many oth... SUZY KASSEM Words Be careful of words, even the miraculous ones. For the miraculous ... ANNE SEXTON We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris- ing generation. I am an oldster myself and... C.S. LEWIS Sometimes when we're not paying attention, relationships happen. There is no rule that requir... LISA KLEYPAS We're nothing but human. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the w... ANONYMOUS There were three things sought by invaders who crossed oceans to discover America. Those were ... TOBA BETA His mind was freshly inclined to sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that all... GEORGE SAUNDERS All good people agree, And all good people say, All nice people, like Us, are We An... RUDYARD KIPLING When I was ten years old, one of my friends brought a Shaleenian kangaroo-cat to school one day. I r... DAVID GERROLD It was a sort of car that seemed to have a faculty for motion with an absolute lack of any accompany... CORNELL WOOLRICH Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. JALALUDDIN MEVLANA RUMI You may compare yourself to others, and feel insecure about your own worthiness. Don’t ... JENNIFER SODINI To understand what Bloom means, consider this dialogue (based loosely on a real-life exchange) betwe... FRANCIS J. BECKWITH Why, Sam,” he said, “to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already writ... J.R.R. TOLKIEN if, in the beginning, there were so few people on the face of the earth, and now there are so many, ... PAULO COELHO Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenl... DOUGLAS ADAMS She dared to cry? On this day of all days? I was the one who would be married at sunset, and I hadn'... ROSAMUND HODGE Just looking at them I grow greedy, as if they were freshly baked loaves waiting on t... LINDA PASTAN There is a club in this world that you do not join knowingly. One day you are just a memb... JOHNA PASSARO The biggest mistake people make when trying to be authentic is just that: they try. They see these r... VIRONIKA TUGALEVA Karma has been a pop culture term for ages. But really, what the heck is it? Karma is not... VERA NAZARIAN If this turns to friendship, it only means That one of us will suffer. That when we ... CYRIL WONG Promise Yourself To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. T... CHRISTIAN D. LARSON It is a horrible thing that those who oppose Christ oppose themselves and in their opposition to Chr... C R LORD The abortion isn’t what they(conservative pro-life men of 1940s) are thinking about; they’r... GRACE PALEY Girl Without Hands Walking through the ruins on your way to work that do not lo... MARGARET ATWOOD Verily, Allah enjoins justice, and the doing of good to others; and giving like kindred; and fo... MIRZA GHULAM AHMAD There is another human defect which the Law of Natural Selection has yet to remedy: When people of t... KURT VONNEGUT I try as much as possible to keep pushing myself beyond my limits - those set by myself, and those b... UFUOMA APOKI Nothing can escape death. Not even the Sun. Not even the Earth. Not even the unive... HINA YU My Dear Son, I am so very proud of you. Now, as you embark on a new journey, I'd like to share ... RICHARD PAUL EVANS There is a fable in the forest Whispered by the branches, as they blow. A tale about the t... ERIN HANSON
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Steal thousands and you're either the government or a ... TERRY PRATCHETT Of course I'm sane, when trees start talking to me, I don't talk back. TERRY PRATCHETT The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind. TERRY PRATCHETT Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck. TERRY PRATCHETT Ginger: You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?... It's all the people who never f... TERRY PRATCHETT There's a door." "Where does it go?" "It stays where it is, I think. TERRY PRATCHETT Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen ... TERRY PRATCHETT No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away... TERRY PRATCHETT The enemy isn't men, or women, it's bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid. TERRY PRATCHETT In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this ... TERRY PRATCHETT The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves ... TERRY PRATCHETT The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who t... TERRY PRATCHETT I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said i... TERRY PRATCHETT In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. TERRY PRATCHETT No one's policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head ... TERRY PRATCHETT Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a w... TERRY PRATCHETT At such times the universe gets a little closer to us. They are strange times, times of beginnings a... TERRY PRATCHETT Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken. TERRY PRATCHETT I saved a man's life once," said Granny. "Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of ... TERRY PRATCHETT The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valle... TERRY PRATCHETT She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their ... TERRY PRATCHETT His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability wh... TERRY PRATCHETT Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded ... TERRY PRATCHETT Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We ... TERRY PRATCHETT The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last ... TERRY PRATCHETT Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page. TERRY PRATCHETT Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect. TERRY PRATCHETT The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes af... TERRY PRATCHETT Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I'm fortunate; I ... TERRY PRATCHETT It was one of those problematic occasions with long silences, sporadic coughs, and people saying iso... TERRY PRATCHETT Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: 'Or Would You Rather Be ... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.Elves are fantasti... TERRY PRATCHETT Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when yo... TERRY PRATCHETT The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf ... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves ar... TERRY PRATCHETT "Why does everyone run toward a blood curdling scream?" mumbled the Senior Wrangler. "It is contrary... TERRY PRATCHETT A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. TERRY PRATCHETT Sham Harga had run a succesful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and ... TERRY PRATCHETT It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If ... TERRY PRATCHETT It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence coul... TERRY PRATCHETT An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs ... TERRY PRATCHETT A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. TERRY PRATCHETT Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate... TERRY PRATCHETT The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then... TERRY PRATCHETT For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) ... TERRY PRATCHETT Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his l... TERRY PRATCHETT In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded. TERRY PRATCHETT Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off. TERRY PRATCHETT The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head. TERRY PRATCHETT God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which migh... TERRY PRATCHETT