Terry Pratchett Quotes

page 13

“Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway.”

“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.”

“He's probably their battle poet, too."
"You mean he makes up heroic songs about famous battles?"
"No, no. He recites poems that frighten the enemy…. When a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy's ears explode.”

“The second mouse gets the cheese!”

“Voodoo is a very interesting religion for the whole family, even those members of it who are dead.”

“Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage.”

“Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it's just another job.”

“You couldn't say 'I had orders.' You couldn't say 'It's not fair.' No one was listening. There were no Words. You owned yourself. […] Not 'Thou Shalt Not'. Say 'I Will Not'.”

“He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spent ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air everyday.”

“Nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough.”

“… a metaphor… is like lying but more decorative.”

“If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.”

“It struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death must be the loneliest creature in the universe. In the great party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen.”

“The Auditors fluttered anxiously. And, as always happens in their species when something goes radically wrong and needs fixing instantly, they settled down to try to work how who was to blame.”

“Cake is not the issue here.”

“Light died in the west. Night and tears took the Nation. The star of Water drifted among the clouds like a murderer softly leaving the scene of the crime.”

“The trouble with witches is that they’ll never run away from things they really hate.

And the trouble with small furry animals in a corner is that, just occasionally, one of them’s a mongoose.”

“Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936.”

“They shed a rather unpleasant glow that didn't so much illuminate, asthe darkness.”

“People whose wishes get granted often don't turn out to be very nice people.”

“They suffered from the terrible delusion that something could be done. They seemed prepared to make the world the way they wanted it or die in the attempt, and the trouble with dying in the attempt was that you died in the attempt.”

“Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.”

“That's what I don't like about magic. It does everything by magic.”

“Dedication: My thanks to the people who showed me that opera was stranger than I could imagine. I can best repay their kindness by not mentioning their names here.”

“I think it's IMPOSSIBLE for anyone famous to come from here, because everyone around here is insane.”

“Don't try the paranormal until you know what's normal.”

“This is Morbidia," said Vlad. "Although she's been calling herself Tracy lately, to be cool.”

“NAUGHTY AND NICE? said Death. BUT IT'S EASY TO BE NICE IF YOU'RE RICH. IS THIS FAIR?
Albert wanted to argue. He wanted to say, Really? In that case, how come so many of the rich buggers is bastards? And being poor don't mean being naughty, neither.”

“His mind worked fast, flying in emergency supplies of common sense, as human minds do, to construct a huge anchor in sanity and prove that what happened hadn't really happened and, if it had happened, hadn't happened much.”

“Now," snapped the Dean, "we've searchedfor a decent library on this island. There simply isn't one! It's ridiculous. How is anyone supposed to get anything done?”

“The universe, they say, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty, and bloody-mindedness.”

“Creators aren't gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It's men that make gods. This explains a lot.”

“Romancin’ is verra important, ye ken. Basically it’s a way the boy can get close to the girl wi’oot her attackin’ him and scratchin’ his eyes oot.”

“So much paperwork to read! So much paperwork to push away! So much paperwork to pretend he hadn't received and that might have been eaten by gargoyles.”

“They may have been ugly. They may have been evil. But when it came to poetry in motion, the Things had all the grace and coordination of a deck-chair.”

“The commander went, as they say in Ankh-Morpork, totally Librarian on them.”

“Look, sir, I know Angua. She's not the useless type. She doesn't stand there and scream helplessly. She makes other people do that.”

“Fate can be one mean god at times.”

“All he knew was that you couldn't hope to try for the big stuff, like world peace and happiness, but you might just about be able to achieve some tiny deed that'd make the world, in a small way, a better place. Like shooting someone.”

“He helped the Librarian up. There was a red glow in the ape's eyes. It had tried to steal his books. This was probably the best proof any wizard could require that the trolleys were brainless.”

“It was a nice day.”

“Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms: in the dark and based on bullshit.”

“Quick, someone's coming! Look real!”

“There was no universe, anywhere, where a Sam Vimes would give in on this, because if he did then he wouldn't be Sam Vimes anymore.”

“Everything is a test.”

“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.”

“Tiffany thought of the little spot in the woods where Granny Weatherwax lay. Remembered.

And knew that You had been right. Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere.”

“Moist was sure doctors keep skeletons around to cow patients. Nyer, nyer, we know what you look underneath…”

“Assassins did have a certain code, after all. It was dishonorable to kill someone if you weren't being paid.”