As a boy I used to go to the Chamber of Horrors at the annual fair, to look at the wax figures of Emperors and Kings, of heroes and murderers of the day. The dead now had that same unreality, which shocks without arousing pity.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Someday, I have no doubt, the dead from today's wars will be seen with a similar sense of sorrow at needless loss and folly as those millions of men who lie in the cemeteries of France and Belgium - and tens of millions of Americans will feel a similar revulsion for the politicians and generals who were so spendthrift with others' lives.
Pale death, with impartial step, knocks at the hut of the poor and the towers of kings.
I've done a lot of death cartoons - tombstones, Grim Reaper, illness, obituaries... I'm not great at analyzing things, but my guess is that maybe the only relief from the terror of being alive is jokes.
I've had a lot of tragic hairdos and outfits.
Spare me the whispering, crowded room, the friends who come and gape and go, the ceremonious air of gloom - all, which makes death a hideous show.
I never wanted to do something grotesque. I never wanted to shock. I wanted my audience to be happy, to be kind.
In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.
I envy the dead.
Yeah, like, when I look back on my life, I just remember back what happened in '74, or something. It seems like only the real good stuff comes to mind. I don't think of all the tragedies and all the funerals. That just doesn't come to mind at all. I guess I'm really blessed that way.
As a citizen of the post-historical variety, I am in continual mourning and prepared for worse.