But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.

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.

We are monkeys. We like to chatter. Chattering doesn't cost us anything.

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake.

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.

If I had been Terry Pratchett the farmer, or Terry Pratchett the dentist, nobody would have paid any attention if I had announced I had Alzheimer's. But there is something fascinating about an author losing the power over words.

Picturesque meant - he decided after careful observation of the scenerey that inspired Twoflower to use the word - that the landscape was horribly precipitous. Quaint, when used to describe the occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-ridden and tumbledown. Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, mean 'idiot'.