There's a lot of science in it, and as Slartibartfast [in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] said: 'I am a great fan of science, but I cannot do a quadratic equation.' I've never, ever been able to do one. I remember one occasion at Warwick University, when Jack and Ian were at their wits' end because I couldn't get it. I felt totally ashamed.
Terry PratchettAll the higher life forms scythed away, just like that. [ . . . ] Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.
Terry PratchettIt was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to 'serve the community' by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get in sideways.
Terry PratchettIt was, according to the history books, the fastest coronation since Bubric the Saxon crowned himself with a very pointy crown on a hill during a thunderstorm, and reigned for one and a half seconds.
Terry PratchettYou had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap.
Terry PratchettPerhaps it would be simpler if you just did what you're told and didn't try to understand things.
Terry PratchettSo 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.
Terry PratchettA police procedural novel can be even funnier if the police include Trolls and Dwarves and things like that. You start looking at the whole basis of the cop novel. You get the cop moving in a different way when you've actually set it in a fantasy city.
Terry PratchettI mean, you're right about the fire and war, all that. But that Rapture stuff--well, if you could see them all in Heaven--serried ranks of them as far as the mind can follow and beyond, league after league of us, flaming swords, all that, well, what I'm trying to say is who has time to go round picking people out and popping them up in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that's your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add.
Terry PratchettThe ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.
Terry PratchettThe enemy isn’t men, or women, it’s bloody stupid people and no-one has the right to be stupid.
Terry PratchettPeople wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.
Terry PratchettThey were also slightly less intelligent than he was. This is a quality you should always pray for in your would-be murderer.
Terry PratchettTheres no stink more sorrorful than the stink of wet, burnt paper. It means: the end.
Terry PratchettMind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.
Terry PratchettAn Assassin, a real Assassin had to look like one-black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?
Terry PratchettI staggered into a Manchester bar late one night on a tour and the waitress said "You look as if you need a Screaming Orgasm". At the time this was the last thing on my mind.
Terry PratchettThe pen is mightier than the sword ... if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.
Terry PratchettHe had never been interested in stories at any age, and had never quite understood the basic concept. He'd never read a work of fiction all the way through. He did remember, as a small boy, being really annoyed at the depiction of Hickory Dickory Dock in a rag book of nursery rhymes because the clock in the drawing was completely wrong for the period.
Terry PratchettPreston, I don't think this creature could ever find its way into your head. Quite apart from anything else, it seems pretty crowded and complicated to me.
Terry PratchettGot to be worth a try, I suppose," said Crowley. "It's not as if I haven't got lots of other work to do, God knows." His forehead creased for a moment, and then he slapped the steering wheel triumphantly. "Ducks!" he shouted. "What?" "That's what water slides off!" Aziraphale took a deep breath. "Just drive the car, please," he said wearily.
Terry PratchettThe characters are the plot. What they do and say and the things that happen to them are, in a sense, what the plot is. You can't take character and plot apart from each other, really.
Terry PratchettAnyway, it's like with bikes,' said the first speaker authoritatively. 'I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A girl's bike.' 'Well. You're a girl,' said one of the others. 'That's sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they're a girl.
Terry PratchettA Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls.
Terry PratchettFantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.
Terry PratchettThey've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Terry PratchettIt was lonely on the hill, and cold. And all you could do was keep going. You could scream, cry, and stamp your feet, but apart from making you feel warmer, it wouldn’t do any good. You could say it was unfair, and that was true, but the universe didn’t care because it didn’t know what “fair” meant. That was the big problem about being a witch. It was up to you. It was always up to you.
Terry PratchettBut you ain't part of it, are you?" said Granny conversationally. "You try, but you always find yourself watchin' yourself watchin' people, eh? Never quite believin' anything? Thinkin' the wrong thoughts?
Terry PratchettThere's some things that you wouldn't tackle in a children's book because it would be beyond, not the mental capabilities, but the experience of someone under the age of say ten or eleven to encompass. But that field is smaller than you might think. They can easily cope with death and things like that; they know about it and it's a subject that often preoccupies them.
Terry Pratchett