Terry Pratchett Quotes

page 14

“There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.”

“The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.”

“I assure you I will not kill you," said Inigo.
"I know that," said Vimes. "But will you try?”

“He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn’t a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.”

“It must be powerful language if you canna make oout what the heel it’s goin’ on aboot!”

“Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters if that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.”

“Vimes struggled to his feet, shook his head and set off after it. No thought was involved. It is the ancient instinct of terriers and policemen to chase anything that runs away.”

“Hell needed horribly bright, self-centered people like Eric. They were much better at being nasty than demons could ever manage”

“Everyone has gods. You just don't think they're gods.”

“Or -- and this she knew was a far more accurate way of looking at it -- the book was true and reality was lying.”

“Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad.”

“I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.”

“Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses.”

“But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.”

“It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum.”

“Oh, always all right. You remember that. We happen to other people.
-Nanny Ogg”

“The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.”

“In Genua, someone set out to make dreams come true. Remember some of your dreams?”

“People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.”

“We cannae just rush in, ye ken."
"Point o' order, Big Man. Yejust rush in. Wejust rush in."
"Aye, Big Yan, point well made. But ye gotta knowye're just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in. It looks bad, havin' to rush oout again straight awa'.”

“It was raining in the small, mountainous country of Llamedos. It was always raining in Llamedos. Rain was the country's main export. It had rain mines.”

“The people who guard the rainbow don't like those who get in the way of the sun.”

“Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.”

“Oh, well… up until now it had been a good day, in a horrible kind of way.”

“There's a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. And it's wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people just walk along them the wrong way.”

“Who'd want a pony when you could have the whole universe? It was far more interesting and you didn't have to muck it out once a week.”

“Don't, Miss Tick had said. things.”

“The dwarfs can turn lead into gold…
It reached the pointy ears of the dwarfs.
-Can we?
-Damned if I know. I can't.
-Yeah, but if you could, you wouldn't say. I wouldn't say, if I could.
-Can you?
-No!
-Ah-ha!”

“God does not play games with His loyal servants", said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice.
"Whoopee", said Crowley.”

“All things are defined by names. Change the name, and you change the thing.”

“There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.”

“If you had enough money, you could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes.”

“Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad.”

“Neither claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes, but both reported it as a success.”

“Mr Lipwig, there's a lady in the hall to see you and we've thanked her for not smoking three times and she's still doing it!”

“The thing about stories is you have to pick the ones that last.”

“Them as can do, has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”

“Well done,' said a voice somewhere behind him. 'Consciousness to sarcasm in five seconds!”

“That's the way it was. Privilege, which just means 'private law.' Two types of people laugh at the law; those that break it and those that make it.”

“One of the highlights of the first Good Omens tour was Neil and I walking through New York singing Shoehorn with Teeth. Well, we'd had a good breakfast. And you don't get mugged, either.”

“Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, "The mountain is, and is not." They would think, "The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.”

“And then there was the headless horseman!" said Tiffany. "He had no head!"
"Well, that is the major job qualification," said the toad.”

“You're not going to die, are you sir?' he said.
'Of course I am. Everyone is. That's what being alive is all about.”

“And it came to pass that in time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One: "Psst!”

“Religion is not an exact science. Sometimes, of course, neither is science.”

“Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon -- he'd run them all.”

“No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.”

“I comma square bracket recruit's name square bracket comma…”

“Just because you’re a zombie doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”