Terry Pratchett Quotes (796 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett: 796 quotes 895 likes

Famous Terry Pratchett Quotes

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

“This book was written using 100% recycled words.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”

Terry Pratchett

Foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1998) by David Pringle, and The Definitive Illustrated Guide to Fantasy (2003) by David Pringle
General sources

“HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM. (Death)”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

Terry Pratchett Quotes about people

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”

Terry Pratchett

“Anyway, if you stop tellin' people it's all sorted out afer they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.”

Terry Pratchett

Variant: If you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.
Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“If you trust in yourself… and believe in your dreams… and follow your star… you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Variant: Now... if you trust in yourself... and believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you'll still get beaten by people who spenttime working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.
Source: The Wee Free Men

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Variant: And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

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

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.”

Terry Pratchett book Jingo

Source: Jingo

Terry Pratchett Quotes about thinking

“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.”

Terry Pratchett

"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)
Context: There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.
But it is true that in an interview I gave recently I did describe a sudden, distinct feeling I had one hectic day that everything I was doing was right and things were happening as they should.
It seemed like the memory of a voice and it came wrapped in its own brief little bubble of tranquillity. I'm not used to this.
As a fantasy writer I create fresh gods and philosophies almost with every new book … But since contracting Alzheimer's disease I have spent my long winter walks trying to work out what it is that I really, if anything, believe.

“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

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

Terry Pratchett

“DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”

Terry Pratchett

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane?”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

“We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

Terry Pratchett: Trending quotes

“Tolkien's dead. J. K. Rowling said no. Philip Pullman couldn't make it. Hi, I'm Terry Pratchett.”

Terry Pratchett

t-shirt worn by Pratchett at conventions https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/books/stephen-mcginty-sir-terry-pratchett-a-class-act-1-3718745 https://books.google.ca/books?id=n78kYbvUd_8C&pg=PA230&lpg=PA230&dq=%22tolkien%27s+dead%22+pratchett+shirt&source=bl&ots=uosL5-E7O9&sig=rMN8J7liwEBmaE92G4EWLunv2wk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBmL6nr-DbAhUB6YMKHd9XALoQ6AEIoAEwGQ#v=onepage&q=%22tolkien's%20dead%22%20pratchett%20shirt&f=false
Misc

Dead

“I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly.

He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

Thinking , Appearance

“It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Terry Pratchett Quotes

“Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.”

Terry Pratchett

Life

“If Not You, Who Else?”

Terry Pratchett book Only You Can Save Mankind

Source: Only You Can Save Mankind

“Don't be smart. Smart is only a polished version of dumb. Try intelligence. It will surely see you through.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

Intelligence

“This book had two authors, and they were both the same person.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Author's note, revised edition (1992).
The Carpet People (1971; 1992)
Source: A Hat Full of Sky

Books , Personality

“I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it.
CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Source: Sourcery

Death , World , Cats

“Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more.”

Terry Pratchett

Wisdom

“She heard him mutter, 'Can you take away this grief?'
'I'm sorry,' she replied. 'Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

Tear , Time

“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”

Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Source: Going Postal

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

God , People , World , Thinking

“… Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was…”

Terry Pratchett

Life , Fear , Mountain , Knowledge

“And when the Patrician was unhappy, he became very democratic. He found intricate and painful ways of spreading that unhappiness as far as possible.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Pain , Way

“The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

Love

“…'I thought the rule was that all monks were shaved.'

'Oh, Soto says he is bald under the hair,'said Lu Tze. 'He says the hair is a separate creature that just happens to live on him.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

“In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”

Terry Pratchett

Pratchett is credited as author of this, as quoted in Ghost Cats : Human Encounters with Feline Spirits (2007) by Dusty Rainbolt, p. 7, and in Chicken Soup for the Soul : What I Learned from the Cat (2009) by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Amy Newmark
Quote attributed to unknown author, in Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrates Cats : And the People Who Love Them (2004) by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Sharon J. Wohlmuth, p. 1
General sources
Variant: In ancient times, cats were worshiped as gods. They have never forgotten this.

God , Cats , Time

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”

Terry Pratchett

Wisdom

“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.”

Terry Pratchett book Eric

Source: Eric

“Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel?”

Terry Pratchett

A similar remark was reportedly made by Pratchett in The Herald (4 October 2004): I'd rather be a climbing ape than a falling angel.
"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)
Context: Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn't take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

Angels

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.”

Terry Pratchett

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Beauty , Way

“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Variant: It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.
Source: A Hat Full of Sky

“Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

“Scientists 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 Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

Chance , Time

“Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

God , Religion , Game , Idea

“A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?”

Terry Pratchett

Interview, quoted in "Words from the Master" http://www.co.uk.lspace.org/books/apf/words-from-the-master.html in The Annotated Pratchett File http://www.co.uk.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html
General sources
Context: As for The Mapp... I suspect it'll never get a US publication. It seemed to frighten US publishers. They don't seem to understand it.
That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans:
A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?
I make no suggestion that one side or the other is right, but observation over many years leads me to believe it is true.

Understanding

“The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

Death , Home , Evil

“There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

Family

“I don't think I've drunk enough beer to understand that.”

Terry Pratchett book The Last Continent

Source: The Last Continent

Beer , Understanding , Thinking

“… the proliferation of luminous fungi or iridescent crystals in deep caves where the torchlessly improvident hero needs to see is one of the most obvious intrusions of narrative causality into the physical universe.”

Terry Pratchett book The Last Continent

Source: The Last Continent

Universe

“What're quantum mechanics?"

"I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose.”

Terry Pratchett book Eric

Source: Eric

People

“And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

Pain , World , Nature , Learning

“Once upon a time the plural of 'wizard' was 'war'.”

Terry Pratchett book The Last Continent

Source: The Last Continent

War , Time

“These people were not only cheering, they were throwing flowers and hats. The hats were made of stone, but the thought was there.”

Terry Pratchett book Eric

Source: Eric

People , Flowers

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir, and I wouldn’t trust me one little inch, sir. I knows a bad one when I sees them. I have a mirror.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

“(About sweeping)….
What he was in FACT doing was moving the dirt around with a broom, to give it a change of scenery and a chance to make new friends.”

Terry Pratchett book Maskerade

Source: Maskerade

Change , Chance

“On the fifth day the Governor of the town called all the tribal chieftains to an audience in the market square, to hear their grievances. He didn't always do anything about them, but at least they got heard, and he nodded a lot, and everyone felt better about it at least until they got home. This is politics.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

Home

“Everything makes sense a bit at a time. But when you try to think of it all at once, it comes out wrong.”

Terry Pratchett book Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind (1992)

Thinking , Sense , Time

“AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.

The End.”

Terry Pratchett

Death

Death , Night

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

Terry Pratchett book Diggers

The Nome Trilogy (1989 - 1990)
Variant: The problem with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and putting things in it.
Source: Diggers (1990)

Funny , People

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

World , Time , Painting

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”

Terry Pratchett book The Last Continent

General sources
Variant: It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. This is in fact true. It's called living.
Source: The Last Continent

Heart Touching , Life

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

People , Color

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.”

Terry Pratchett

“If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.”

Terry Pratchett

Books

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man