Terry Pratchett Quotes

She was convinced that she was anorexic, because every time she looked in the mirror she did indeed see a fat person.

What is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons?

There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.

For the first time in her life Granny wondered whether there might be something important in all these books people were setting store by these days, although she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy. Among the many things in the infinitely varied universe with which Granny did not hold was talking to dead people, who by all accounts had enough troubles of their own.

Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.

One minute I'm just another rabbit and happy about it, next minute *whazaam*, I'm thinking. That's a major drawback if you're looking for happiness as a rabbit, let me tell you. You want grass and sex, not thoughts like 'What's it all about, when you get right down to it?'

You are very clever,' said the old man shyly. 'I would like to eat your brains, one day,' For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, 'You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!', but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for, 'It's very kind of you to say so.

The Tezuman priests have a sophisticated calendar and an advanced horology," quoted Rincewind. "Ah," said Eric, "Good." "No," said Rincewind patiently. "It means time measurement." "Oh.

Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

Monsters are getting more uppity, too (...) I heard where this guy, he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door (...) and you know what? Its mum come and complained. Its actual mum come right down to the hall next day and complained. Actually complained. That's the respect you get.

Let's see, now... in HOGFATHER there are a number of stabbings, someone's killed by a man made of knives, someone's killed by the dark, and someone just been killed by a wardrobe. It's a book about the magic of childhood. You can tell.

The key to winning, as always, was looking as if you had every right, nay, duty to be where you were. It helped if you could also suggest in every line of your body that no one else had any rights to be doing anything, anywhere, whatsoever.

IT'S THE EXPRESSION ON THEIR LITTLE FACES I LIKE, said the Hogfather. "You mean sort of fear and awe and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?" YES. NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL BELIEF.

This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That’s why everything is exactly the wrong way around.

If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.

Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting 'All the Gods are bastards.'

Behind him the Master of Ceremonies cleared his throat. His eyes took on a distant, glazed look.The Stealer of Souls, he said in the faraway voice of one whose ears aren't hearing what his mouth is saying, Defeater of Empires, Swallower of Oceans, Thief of Years, The Ultimate Reality, Harvester of Mankind, the-ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT. I CAN SEE MYSELF IN.

Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human.

He looked up at them, a scruffy Napoleon with his laces trailing, exiled to a rose-trellised Elba.

Creatures which, lacking mankind's superior brain power, did not concern themselves with finding someone to blame, and instead tried to find someone to eat.

We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.' Precisely,' said a passing bush.

When you're all singing together, it brings things together. I know the songs that my grandfather and my father sang.

No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.

He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk.

No one thinks that young adults read hooks for YOUNG ADULTS, books for young adults are read by kids.

escapism isn't good or bad in itself. what is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to.

Given enough coffee I could rule the world

"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever" he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?"

All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.

Sometimes the crime follows the punishment, which only serves to prove the foresight of the Great God." "That's what my grandmother used to say," said Brutha automatically. "Indeed? I would like to know more about this formidable lady." "She used to give me a thrashing every morning because I would certainly do something to deserve it during the day," said Brutha. "A most complete understanding of the nature of mankind.

I have, before now, waited for a pen to perform a macro.

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

You are in favour of the common people?” said Dragon mildly. The common people?” said Vimes. “They’re nothing special. They’re no different from the rich and powerful except they’ve got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit. So I suppose I’ve got to be on their side.

Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.

By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

Some shadows are so long, they arrive before the light.

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

... all reputable falconers agreed that for hunting purposes the only way you could reliably bring down prey with a wowhawk was by using it in a slingshot.

In my early teens, I read every bound volume of the magazine Punch. Every writer of any distinction in the English language, and I mean including America and England, at some time wrote for Punch. Jerome K. Jerome, who wrote Three Men In A Boat, I loved. I was very impressed when I read a piece by Mark Twain in Punch, and realized that despite the fact that they were on different continents, Jerome K. Jerome and Mark Twain had the same kind of laconic, laid-back, "The human race is damn stupid, but quite interesting" attitude. They were almost talking with the same voice.

I've lost both parents in the last two years, so you pick up on that stuff. That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill.

All things that are, are ours. But we must care. For if we do not care, we do not exist. If we do not exist, then there is nothing but blind oblivion. And even oblivion must end someday. Lord, will you grant me just a little time? For the proper balance of things. To return what was given. For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds. Death took a step backwards. It was impossible to read expression in azrael's features. Death glanced sideways at the servants. Lord, what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the reaper man?

You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I'm not writing 'The A-Team' - if there's a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.

It's a guilty secret of a lot of writers, as you get older you don't read as much fiction as you used to, mainly because it's like you are deconstructing it all the time.

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.