Terry Pratchett - soothscribe

Reading TP's 2009 book Unseen Academicals reminds me how often I have been struck by his pithy insights into the human - well, at least British - condition. Apropos the fact that you can keep live crabs in a bucket without a lid because the others will pull back any crab that tries to get out, he writes:

Crab bucket, thought Glenda as they hurried towards the Night Kitchen. That's how it works. . . Practically everything my Mum ever told me, that's crab bucket. Practically everything I've ever told Juliet, that's crab bucket, too. . . It's so nice and warm on the inside that you forget there's an outside. The worst of it is, the crab that mostly keeps you down is you.