Terry Pratchett: Trending quotes (page 39)

Terry Pratchett trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
Terry Pratchett: 1592   quotes 895   likes

“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

“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

“What're quantum mechanics?"

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

Terry Pratchett book Eric

Source: Eric

People

“… 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

Terry Pratchett book Eric

Source: Eric

“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.

God , Thinking

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

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“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