Quotes by Terry Pratchett
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It's not lying when you do it to officers!

You've got a lot of time for abstract thought when you've got your hand stuck up a dead badger.

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.

Child. That was a terrible thing to say to anyone who was almost thirteen.

I mistrust the term graphic novel because it sounds like a good thing to put on a tee-shirt. That's why the French like them.

The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well.

The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.

It's always surprising to be reminded that while you're watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they're watching and thinking about you, right back at you.

Then there is the dress. It has been owned by many sisters as well and has been taken up, taken out, taken down, and taken in by her mother so many times that it really ought to have been taken away.

Or there will be a reckoning!

That's Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people.

Time and space were, from Death's point of view, merely things that he'd heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not.

Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.

They looked at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving opposite ways up a narrow street and waiting for the other man to reverse first.

Mr Lipwig, there's a lady in the hall to see you and we've thanked her for not smoking three times and she's still doing it!

I discovered fantasy and science fiction when I was about 10, and read nothing else for about three years. I ran out of all the books that there were to read in the library. I was keen on reading stuff that took me to other places.

The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I'm not sure about the turnip.

You were the kind of kid who couldn't see the difference between throwing rocks at a cat and setting it on fire.

Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because -- what with trolls and dwarfs and so on -- speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.

I became a journalist at 17. A few hours later, I saw my first dead body, which was somewhat... colourful. That's when I learned you can go on throwing up after you run out of things to throw up.

He helped the Librarian up. There was a red glow in the ape's eyes. It had tried to steal his books. This was probably the best proof any wizard could require that the trolleys were brainless.

And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.

I ushered souls into the next world. I was the grave of all hope. I was the ultimate reality. I was the assassin against whom no lock would hold. -- Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?

You are very clever, said the old man shyly. I would like to eat your brains, one day.

Although she was aware that somewhere under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn't mean to say she approved of it.

Biers was where the undead drank. And when Igor the barman was asked for a Bloody Mary, he didn't mix a metaphor.

One of my predecessors used to have people torn to death by wild tortoises. It was not a quick death.

I have to ask, sir...Why does it have to be done like this?
Vetinari smiled. Can you keep a secret, Mister Lipwig?
Oh, yes, sir. I've kept lots.
Capital. And the point is, so can I. You do not need to know.

We can't just drop everything, sir!
Mister Lipwig. Is there something in the word 'tyrant' you do not understand?

I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.

If I were you, I'd sue my face for slander.

Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.

You had to hand it to the Patrician, he admitted grudgingly. If you didn't, he sent men to come and take it away.

'Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.'

I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him.

Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

I think that sick people in Ankh-Morpork generally go to a vet. It's generally a better bet. There's more pressure on a vet to get it right. People say it was god's will when granny dies, but they get angry when they lose a cow.

You'll see! We're going to the palace. Fetch Angua. We might need her. And bring the search warrant. You mean the sledgehammer, sir? Yes.

Ordinary fortune-tellers tell you what you want to happen; witches tell you what's going to happen whether you want it to or not. Strangely enough, witches tend to be more accurate but less popular.

It was like ... like wizardry, but without the wizards and the mess.

And our lady friend, she thinks life works like a fairy tale.' Well, that's harmless, isn't it?' Yeah, but in fairy tales, when someone dies... it's just a word.

Why bother with a cunning plan when a simple one will do?

Someone out there was about to find that their worst nightmare was a maddened Librarian. With a badge.

It was said that life was cheap in Ankh-Morpork. This was of course, completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death for free.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm a writer who's writing books, and therefore, I don't want to die. You'd miss the end of the book, wouldn't you? You can't die with an unfinished book.

Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you're going to behave, I shan't bring you again.

He had about the same life expectancy as a three legged hedgehog on a six lane motorway.

You can't find a hermit to teach you herming, because of course that rather spoils the whole thing.

The conversation of human beings seldom interested him, but it crossed his mind that the males and females always got along best when neither actually listened fully to what the other one was saying.

Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants -- the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare becoming a mere lower-class brawl.

If he was going to be boiled for a lamb, then he might as well be roasted for a sheep.

What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that?

Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?

Last night there seemed to be a chance. Anything was possible last night. That was the trouble with last nights. They were always followed by this mornings.

In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.

In order to have a change of fortune at the last minute, you have to take your fortune to the last minute.

There is always time for another last minute.

Gods, it felt good. Hot water was civilization. Vimes could feel the stiffness in his muscles melting away in the warmth.

Actors, said Granny, witheringly. As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more.

Mr. False! No, don't start grabbing the chickens! Better off farmer with no chickens than a load of chickens with no farmer! Anyway, they'll probably float, or fly, or something!

Many feel they are called to the priesthood, but what they really hear is an inner voice saying, 'It's indoor work with no heavy lifting, do you want to be a ploughman like your father?'

Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.

It doesn't matter if dragons are flying overhead or whatever -- a lot of Victoriana is still cut in the frame of fantasy.

All Fungi are edible.
Some fungi are only edible once.

Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms: in the dark and based on bullshit.

Oh, come on. Revelation was a mushroom dream that belonged in the Apocrypha. The New Testament is basically about what happened when God got religion.

You will have to look a long way before you find a bunch of scum-suckers more greedy, humourless and deserving of death than the suits in the music business.

If failure had no penalty success would not be a prize.

Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad.

One of the highlights of the first Good Omens tour was Neil and I walking through New York singing Shoehorn with Teeth. Well, we'd had a good breakfast. And you don't get mugged, either.

And never resist a perfect moment.

Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.

Insofar as he'd formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners.

I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on the covers... this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.

It was quite impossible to describe. Here is what it looked like. It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.

Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent-protection.

You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.

Sometimes the moon is light and sometimes it's in shadow, but you should always remember it's the same moon.

He's out of his depth on a wet pavement.

So much paperwork to read! So much paperwork to push away! So much paperwork to pretend he hadn't received and that might have been eaten by gargoyles.

Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.

I'm up to my neck in the real world, every day. Just you try doing your VAT return with a head full of goblins.

What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?

How can anyone trust scientists? If new evidence comes along, they change their minds.

What're quantum mechanics?
I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose.

The proliferation of luminous fungi or iridescent crystals in deep caves where the torchlessly improvident hero needs to see is one of the most obvious intrusions of narrative causality into the physical universe.

William wondered why he always disliked people who said 'no offense meant.' Maybe it was because they found it easier to to say 'no offense meant' than actually to refrain from giving offense.

The most important thing was that time had passed, pouring thousands of soothing seconds across the island. People need time to deal with the now before it runs away and becomes the then.

Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.

But that was just it -- hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.

Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows -- sometimes it does not need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips.

Stop stealing the funeral meats right now, you wee scuggers! She shouted. The Feegles stopped and stared at her. Then Rob Anybody said: Socks wi'oot feets?

But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats.

The important thing about adventures, thought Mr. Bunnsy, was that they shouldn't be so long as to make you miss mealtimes.

It was the heart of any scam or fiddle -- keep the punter uncertain, or, if he is certain, make him certain of the wrong thing.

It is possible to live well with dementia and write best-sellers 'like wot I do.

Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.

We're a dying race, said Kwartz sadly, as the party set off under the stars. Young Jasper's the only pebble in our tribe. We suffer from philosophy, you know.