Terry Pratchett 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

„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

„(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

„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

„… 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

„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!

„…'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

„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

„Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.“

—  Terry Pratchett

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

„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

„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.

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

—  Terry Pratchett, book The Last Continent

Source: The Last Continent

„… 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

„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

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

—  Terry Pratchett

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

—  Terry Pratchett, book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

„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

„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)

„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