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Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.
Terry Pratchett
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Being sober during exams is crucial for success, as ignorance can lead to limited career opportunities.

This quote from Terry Pratchett humorously emphasizes the importance of being sober and alert during examinations. By alluding to unusual careers that might emerge from a lack of understanding regarding this fact, Pratchett cleverly points out that poor decision-making can have serious consequences, especially when it comes to one's future and career choices.

Themes

SoberExamCareerUnderstandingHumor

In practice

Example use cases

In a light-hearted speech about preparing for exams, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of focus.

More from Terry Pratchett

And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
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Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
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You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
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Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
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People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
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