Terry Pratchett Quotes

The only thing more dangerous then a vampire crazed with blood lust was a vampire crazed with anything else. All the meticulous single-mindedness that went into finding young women who slept with their bedroom window open got channeled into some other interest, with merciless and painstaking efficiency.

It's an old magical principle - it's even filtered down into RPG systems - that magic, while taking a lot of effort, can be 'stored' - in a staff, for example. No doubt a wizard spends a little time each day charging up his staff, although you go blind if you do it too much, of course.

Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: 'Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?'

Dogs are not like cats, who amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw. Men made dogs, they took wolves and gave them human things - unnecessary intelligence, names, a desire to belong, and a twitching inferiority complex. All dogs dream wolf dreams, and know they're dreaming of biting their Maker. Every dog knows, deep in his heart, that he is a Bad Dog.

The Auditors fluttered anxiously. And, as always happens in their species when something goes radically wrong and needs fixing instantly, they settled down to try to work how who was to blame.

Once you have your character sitting right there in your head, all you really need to do is wind them up, put them down, and simply write down what they do, say, or think.

We live in a science fiction universe. We have done for a long time.

Cutangle: While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe. Treatle: I hadn't looked at it like that, but you're absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance. They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.

[Y]ou weren't born with a talent for witchcraft: it didn't come easily; you worked hard at it because you wanted it. You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and always will be high... People say you don't find witchcraft; witchcraft finds you. But you've found it, even if at the time you didn't know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.

The truth isn't easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find.

A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.

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.

THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU, Death continued. THEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL IN MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES. FASCINATING.

It was then that Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing people's doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money.

- I notice you didn't laugh, Mr. Black! - No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.

Magrat had used a lot of powder to make her face pale and interesting. It combined with the lavishly applied mascara to give the guard the impression that he was looking at two flies that had crashed into a sugar bowl.

Because no man wants to be a coward in front of a cheese.

Death was standing behind a lectern, poring over a map. He looked at Mort as if he wasn’t entirely there. You haven't heard of the bayof mante, have you? He said. “No, sir,” said Mort. Famous shipwreck there. “Was there?” there will be, said Death, if I can find the damn place.

The theater troubled her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn’t belong to her, one that wasn’t in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn’t belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn’t know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better.

I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.

Incidentally, it's best not to argue with the nursing staff. I find the best course of action is to throw some chocolates in one direction and hurry off in the other while their attention is distracted.

She folded her arms and then shouted, "Right you thieving scunners! How dare you steal Miss Treason's funeral meats!" "Oh, waily, waily, it's the foldin' o' the arms, the foooldin' o' the aaaarmss!" cried Daft Wullie, dropping to the ground and trying to cover himself with leaves. Around him Feegles started to wail and cower and Big Yan began to bang his head on the rear wall of the dairy.

If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged.

You’d better tell me what you know, toad,” said Tiffany. “Miss Tick isn’t here. I am.” “Another world is colliding with this one,” said the toad. “There. Happy now? That’s what Miss Tick thinks. But it’s happening faster than she expected. All the monsters are coming back.” “Why?” “There’s no one to stop them.” There was silence for a moment. “There’s me,” said Tiffany.

The point is that if a book that had been published three years ago started to sell twice as many all of a sudden it probably wouldn't even get no­ticed. People wouldn't be tracking it. The system has cleaned up its act an awful lot but the best-seller list system is not an entirely foolproof thing.

I mean, I wouldn't pay more than a couple of quid to see me, and I'm me.

Now that their long war was over, they could get on with the proper concern of all civilised nations, which is to prepare for the next one.

I'm a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there's very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in 'I Shall Wear Midnight,' which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they're practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don't fall off. And you try not to use them too often.

I have a living will and I have friends, and I have money and I have hope.

There's a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. And it's wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people just walk along them the wrong way.

My character - and for that matter my worst habits - could only be described by someone else. You can't open a box with the crowbar inside it.

People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.

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

The truth is a fog, in which one man sees the heavenly host and the other one sees a flying elephant.

My idea of a good novel was one you made enough money out of to buy a greenhouse.

It was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying.

I grow as many of our vegetables as I can, because my granddad was a professional gardener, and it's in the blood.

'Don't think of it as dying,' said Death. 'Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.'

As a species, we are forever sticking our finger into the electric socket of the universe to see what will happen next.

Up until now I'd always though RSI meant 'I hate my damn job'.

Strength enough to build a home, Time enough to hold a child, Love enough to break a heart

But ye gotta know where ye're just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in anywhere. It looks bad, havin' to rush oout again straight awa'.

WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN? The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato. SQUEAK, he said. Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.

There are no inconsistencies in the Discworld books; ocassionally, however, there are alternate pasts.

Tell someone you are going to rob them and all that will happen is that you'll get a reputation as a truthful man.

But what's worth more than gold?" "Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren't you worth more than that?

Currently, it was leading him through a neighborhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you'd bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and garbage were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality, and the graffiti was close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.

Just because something is a metaphor doesn't mean it can't be real.