Quotes by Terry Pratchett
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I thought jet planes were just trucks with more wings and less wheels.

Of course, Ankh-Morpork's citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed.

I wouldn't trust you with a bucket of water if my knickers were on fire!

If there's one thing that really annoys a god, it's not knowing something.

I stroll along, talk, I sign books, people buy me drinks, I forget where my hotel is, I get lost and fall into some local body of water... done it hundreds of times.

That's one form of magic, of course.
What, just knowing things?
Knowing things that other people don't know.

Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.

We live and learn, or, perhaps more importantly we learn and live.

I'm fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like something you put up in the rain.

What's all this about? How does it work? What should I do? What am I for?

Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.

The Kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance.

Humans take. They plough with iron. They ravage the land.'
'Some do, I'll grant you that. Others put back more'n they take. They put back love. They've got soil in their bones.

On a million hillsides the girl ran, on a million bridges the girl chose, on a million paths the woman stood...
All different, all one.
All she could do for all of them was be herself, here and now, as hard as she could.

Personal's not the same as important. People just think it is.

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.

Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.

There are times when the best writing you can do is to go for a walk or drive, a long drive is ideal.

If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.

Commander Vimes always says that when life hands you a mess of spaghetti, you just keep pulling until you find a meatball.

Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!

I keep vaguely wondering what Macs are like, but the ones I've seen spend too much time being friendly.

But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him.

When the humours were handed out, Ankh-Morpork got the one for joking and Quirm had to do make do with their expertise in fine dining and love-making.

It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory.

It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things, provided you were bad enough to be funny.

Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out.

So, mistletoe, in fact, symbolizes mistletoe.

The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its dumbest member divided by the number of mobsters.

Making money isn't something to be ashamed of. There's a feeling now that if you have money you must have got it by some kind of shady dealing or being an MP.

Ach, people are always telling us not to do things said Rob Anybody, that's how we ken the most interesting things to do.

Money doesn't buy happiness, Gytha.
I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks!

The days followed one another patiently. Right back at the beginning of the multiverse they had tried all passing at the same time, and it hadn't worked.

He moved on, in the centre of a widening circle. He wasn't an enemy, he was a nemesis.

Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.

Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of housework in other people.

Other people salted away money for their old age, but Nanny preferred to accumulate memories.

You know, I never imagined there were he-dryads. Not even in an oak tree. One of the giants grinned at him. Druellae snorted. Stupid! Where do you think acorns come from?

Oh, well...up until now it had been a good day, in a horrible kind of way.

Life is a trick, and you get one chance to learn it.

There are some things that are more appropriate to a children's than an adult book but there's a huge overlapping area and most kids read an age group up anyway.

When she spoke again it was in the thin, careful and above all brave voice of someone who has pulled themselves together despite overwhelming odds but might let go again at any moment.

These weren't cheap modern books; these were books bound in leather, and not just leather, but leather from clever cows who had given their lives for literature after a happy existence in the very best pastures.

The words echoed around the cavern and broke through mere rock, so great was the force behind them, melted mere mountains, screamed across the miles.

All he knew was that you couldn't hope to try for the big stuff, like world peace and happiness, but you might just about be able to achieve some tiny deed that'd make the world, in a small way, a better place. Like shooting someone.

Progress just means bad things happen faster.

Maybe the only significant difference between a really smart simulation and a human being was the noise they made when you punched them.

In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

He didn't administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.

Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association.

The thing is, I mean, there's times when you look at the universe and you think, What about me? and you can just hear the universe replying, Well, what about you?

I've never known what to do, said Rincewind with hollow cheerfulness. Been completely at a loss my whole life. He hesitated. I think it's called being human, or something.

Rincewind a man who might well have had 'Victim' written all over him but also had 'Wizzard' written on his hat.

Perhaps it was the spell, in its years of living in Rincewind's head, that affected his eyes. Perhaps his time with Twoflower, who only saw things as they ought to be, had taught him to see things as they are.

Rincewind had in any case seen his past life flash in front of his eyes so many times that he could sleep through the boring bits.

Rincewind wasn't used to people being pleased to see him. It was unnatural, and boded no good. These people were not only cheering, they were throwing flowers and hats. The hats were made out of stone, but the thought was there.

Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind.

Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant 'idiot'.

Rincewind gave his fingers a long shocked stare, as one might regard a gun that has been hanging on the wall for decades and has suddenly gone off and perforated the cat.

Rincewind tried to force the memory out of his mind, but it was rather enjoying itself there, terrorizing the other occupants and kicking over the furniture.

On the Disc the gods dealt severely with atheists.

Luck is my middle name. Mind you, my first name is Bad.

Shut up sergeant. You're a free troll. That's an order
Sam Vimes.

History was full of the bones of good men who'd followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.

Odd thing, ain't it... you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.

What is magic? There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day.

Everyone's heard of Erwin Schrodinger's famous thought experiment. You put a cat in a box with a bottle of poison, which many people would suggest is about as far as you need to go.

If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease.

Grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue.

The labyrinth of Ephebe is ancient and full of one hundred and one amazing things you can do with hidden springs, razor-sharp knives, and falling rocks.

Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.

All holy piety in public, and all peeled grapes and self-indulgence in private.

After you've been working fairly intensively on a novel for six months you never want to see the damn thing again.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.

Although the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome.

Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them.

I express preference for a chronological sequence of events which precludes a violence.

If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.

When they're standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment.

The space between the young reader's eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril.'.

Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.

What's a philosopher?' said Brutha. Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,' said a voice in his head.

No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.

But here's some advice, boy. Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions.

If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.

I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

Imagination, not intelligence, made us human.

Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out.

He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.

I imagine that fish have no word for water.

When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary.

Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.

Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o'course.

You can't inspire people with facts. They need a cause. They need a symbol.

The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).

I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts.

Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned.

I'm interested in mythology generally, but India has no special place in my heart -- although Hindu gods seem a lot more fun.