Terry Pratchett quotes

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Terry Pratchett

Birthdate: 28. April 1948
Date of death: 12. March 2015
Other names: Sir Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English humorist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels.

Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, after which Pratchett wrote an average of two books a year. His 2011 Discworld novel Snuff became the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-readership novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days. The final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, was published in August 2015, five months after his death.

Pratchett, with more than 85 million books sold worldwide in 37 languages, was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours. In 2001 he won the annual Carnegie Medal for The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, the first Discworld book marketed for children. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2010.In December 2007, Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. He later made a substantial public donation to the Alzheimer's Research Trust , filmed a television programme chronicling his experiences with the condition for the BBC, and became a patron for Alzheimer's Research UK. Pratchett died on 12 March 2015, aged 66. Wikipedia

Photo: Luigi Novi / CC BY 3.0

Works

Small Gods

Terry Pratchett

The Wee Free Men

Terry Pratchett

Guards! Guards!

Terry Pratchett

Hogfather

Terry Pratchett

Lords and Ladies

Terry Pratchett

Night Watch

Terry Pratchett

Witches Abroad

Terry Pratchett

Mort

Terry Pratchett

Going Postal

Terry Pratchett

Wyrd Sisters

Terry Pratchett

Reaper Man

Terry Pratchett

The Carpet People

Terry Pratchett

I Shall Wear Midnight

Terry Pratchett

The Light Fantastic

Terry Pratchett

Thief of Time

Terry Pratchett

A Hat Full of Sky

Terry Pratchett

Sourcery

Terry Pratchett

Equal Rites

Terry Pratchett

Snuff

Terry Pratchett

Monstrous Regiment

Terry Pratchett

Nation

Terry Pratchett

Soul Music

Terry Pratchett

Making Money

Terry Pratchett

Wintersmith

Terry Pratchett

Maskerade

Terry Pratchett

The Truth

Terry Pratchett

Unseen Academicals

Terry Pratchett

The Last Continent

Terry Pratchett

Men at Arms

Terry Pratchett

Feet of Clay

Terry Pratchett

Jingo

Terry Pratchett

Carpe Jugulum

Terry Pratchett

Pyramids

Terry Pratchett

Thud!

Terry Pratchett

The Unadulterated Cat

Terry Pratchett

Moving Pictures

Terry Pratchett

Eric

Terry Pratchett

The Fifth Elephant

Terry Pratchett

The Shepherd's Crown

Terry Pratchett

The Long Earth

Terry Pratchett

Raising Steam

Terry Pratchett

Dodger

Terry Pratchett

Good Omens

Terry Pratchett

The Nome Trilogy

Terry Pratchett

Only You Can Save Mankind

Terry Pratchett

Johnny and the Dead

Terry Pratchett

Interesting Times

Terry Pratchett

Johnny and the Bomb

Terry Pratchett

The Last Hero

Terry Pratchett

Diggers

Terry Pratchett

Quotes Terry Pratchett

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

— Terry Pratchett, book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

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 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

„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

Waiting, Light, Thinking, Travel

„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

Cats, World, Death

„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)

Time, Sense, Thinking

„If Not You, Who Else?“

— Terry Pratchett, book Only You Can Save Mankind

Source: Only You Can Save Mankind

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

— Terry Pratchett

Wisdom

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

— Terry Pratchett

Life

„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

Personality, Books

„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

„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

Universe, Death, Life

„(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

Chance, Change

„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

Understanding, Idea, Game, Religion

„… 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

„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!

Way, Pain

„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

Thinking, World, People, God

„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