Somewhere around the place I've got an unfinished short story about Schrodinger's Dog; it was mostly moaning about all the attention the cat was getting.
Interpretation
The quote humorously highlights how the less popular can feel overshadowed by the more famous.
Terry Pratchett's quote cleverly plays on the concept of Schrödinger's cat, suggesting that just as Schrödinger's cat receives much attention, there are often other subjects, like a dog, that remain unacknowledged despite their potential significance. The humor derives from the notion of jealousy and the desire for recognition, even in fictional narratives, where the dog feels neglected in favor of the widely discussed cat.
In practice
During a talk about popular literature, you might use this quote to highlight that many great works go unnoticed.
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.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
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.
What i value more than all things, good humor.
There are two insults no human being will endure: that he has no sense of humor, and that he has never known trouble.
I think of shock as kind of an uptown form of surprise. Comedy is filled with surprise, so when I cross a line... I like to find out where the line might be and then cross it deliberately, and then make the audience happy about crossing the line with me.
I would not want to live if I could not perform. It's in my will. I am not to be revived unless I can do an hour of stand-up.
He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients - no, three, I think - yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.
Humor is very interesting to me. My films are not comedies, but there's comedy in them from time to time, absurdities, just like in real life.
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