She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do. And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.
Terry PratchettSome people believe that when you die, you cross the River of Death and have to pay the ferryman. People don’t seem to worry about that these days. Perhaps there’s a bridge now.
Terry PratchettNo! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled. "Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?" "What?" "Oh, you'd like something simpler?
Terry PratchettThey say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.
Terry PratchettI would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir' Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?' 'Permission to go and find my mother?'
Terry PratchettNot for the first time in the history of the universe, someone for whom communication normally came as effortlessly as a dream was stuck for inspiration when faced with a few lines on the back of a card.
Terry PratchettPeople are content to wait a long time for salvation, but prefer dinner to turn up inside an hour.
Terry PratchettIt as true that normal people couldn't hear Gaspode speak, because dogs don't speak. It's a well know fact. ... Besides, almost all dogs don't talk. Ones that do are merely a statistical error, and can therefore be ignored.
Terry PratchettGranny sighed. "You have learned something," she said, and thought it safe to insert a touch of sternness into her voice. "They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.
Terry PratchettIt's no wonder most religions are born in the desert, because when men lay beneath that boundless night sky and look up at the infinite expanse of creation they have an uncontrollable urge to put something in the way .
Terry PratchettThe dwarfs can turn lead into gold... It reached the pointy ears of the dwarfs. -Can we? -Damned if I know. I can't. -Yeah, but if you could, you wouldn't say. I wouldn't say, if I could. -Can you? -No! -Ah-ha!
Terry PratchettThere is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.
Terry PratchettA witch who is bored might do ANYTHING. People said things like 'we had to make our own amusements in those days' as if this signified some kind of moral worth, and perhaps it did, but the last thing you wanted a witch to do was get bored and start making her own amusements, because witches sometimes had famously erratic ideas about what was amusing.
Terry PratchettCats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.
Terry PratchettYou did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.
Terry PratchettIn the end the problem isn't that you have the wrong sort of government for the People, but that you have the wrong sort of People.
Terry PratchettThe people of Ankh-Morpork had a straightforward, no-nonsense approach to entertainment, and while they were looking forward to seeing a dragon slain, they'd be happy to settle instead for seeing someone being baked alive in his own armour. You didn't get the chance every day to see someone baked alive in their own armour. It would be something for the children to remember.
Terry PratchettIt takes forty men with their feet on the ground to keep one man with his head in the air.
Terry PratchettThey were small, brightly coloured, happy little creatures who secreted some of the nastiest toxins in the world, which is why the job of looking after the large vivarium where they happily passed their days was given to first-year students, on the basis that if they got things wrong there wouldn't be too much education wasted.
Terry PratchettTaxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo.
Terry PratchettScientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
Terry PratchettI don’t see why it matters what is written. Not when it’s about people. It can always be crossed out.
Terry PratchettGranny Weatherwas was not a jouster in the lists of love, but, as an intelligent onlooker, she knew how the game was played.
Terry PratchettI try to make computers say things like You have 60 seconds to achieve safe distance.
Terry PratchettPeople like that don't need a reason apart from "because I can". They have a nightmare and try to make it happen.
Terry PratchettThe whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.
Terry PratchettI found while driving in Wyoming that wearing a stetson and driving a beat-up pickup meant you could go as fast as you like, while the police picked up Californian winnebagos that went one mph over 55. After all, they wanted to bring money into the state, not merely circulate it.
Terry PratchettWHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM? "Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?" NO "Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact." THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN. ... "Really? Then what would have happened, pray?" A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
Terry PratchettOther people salted away money for their old age, but Nanny preferred to accumulate memories.
Terry PratchettEither dragons should exist completely or fail to exist at all, he felt. A dragon only half-existing was worse than the extremes.
Terry PratchettBut here's some advice, boy. Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions.
Terry PratchettPeople don't like to say comic so they say Graphic Novel, despite the fact that I don't think the true Graphic Novel has been written anywhere.
Terry PratchettI would advise budding writers some other kind of job, unless they think they're very, very lucky.
Terry Pratchett