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Terry Pratchett Quotes
page 15

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  

✵ 28. April 1948 – 12. March 2015   •   Other names Sir Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett photo
Terry Pratchett: 796   quotes 895   likes

Terry Pratchett Quotes

“If I heeded all the advice I've had over the years, I'd have written 18 books about Rincewind.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Books

“I asked a teacher what the opposite of a miracle was and she, without thinking, I assume, said it was an act of God.
You shouldn't say something like that to the kind of kid who will grow up to be a writer; we have long memories.”

Terry Pratchett

"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)

God , Thinking , Teachers , Memory

“I can't have your subjects throwing my family over the balcony, that would never do.'
'Good,' said Snibril.
'I'll do it myself.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

Family

“Nerds are the only people who know how to operate the video recorder.”

Terry Pratchett

Desert Island Discs (1997) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00944ry/
General sources

People

“I keep vaguely wondering what Macs are like, but the ones I've seen spend too much time being friendly.”

Terry Pratchett

alt.fan.pratchett (5 July 1992) http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.pratchett/browse_frm/thread/6d66f88060364dbb
Usenet

Time

“Suicide was against the law. Johnny had wondered why. It meant that if you missed, or the gas ran out, or the rope broke, you could get locked up in prison to show you that life was really very jolly and thoroughly worth living.”

Terry Pratchett book Johnny and the Dead

Johnny and the Dead (1993)

Life , Law , Suicide

“Perhaps, if you knew you were going to die, your senses crammed in as much detail as they could while they still had the chance…”

Terry Pratchett The Nome Trilogy

Truckers, Ch. 1
The Nome Trilogy (1989 - 1990)

Sense , Chance

“Next comes the realist phase ("After all, from a purely geometrical point of view a cat is only a tube with a door at the top.").”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

About giving a cat a pill
The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Cats

“I wish that the people who sing about the deeds of heroes would think about the people who have to clear up after them.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

People , Thinking , Singing

“I think that sick people in Ankh-Morpork generally go to a vet. It's generally a better bet. There's more pressure on a vet to get it right. People say "it was god's will" when granny dies, but they get angry when they lose a cow.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

God , People , Thinking

“As a boy I had a clear image of the Almighty: He had a tail coat and pinstriped trousers, black, slicked-down hair and an aquiline nose.
On the whole, I was probably a rather strange child, and I wonder what my life might have been like if I'd met a decent theologian when I was nine.”

Terry Pratchett

"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)

Life , Boy

“The Deftmenes are mad and the Dumii are sane, thought Snibril, and that's just the same as being mad except that it's quieter. If only you could mix them together, you'd end up with normal people.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

People , Madness

“Too many people want to have written.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

People

“Normally its narrow streets were crowded with stalls, and people from all over the Carpet. They'd all be trying to cheat one another in that open-and-above-board way known as 'doing business.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

People , Way , Business , Cheating

“It's an interesting fact that fewer than 17 % of Real cats end their lives with the same name they started with. Much family effort goes into selecting one at the start ("She looks like a Winnifred to me"), and the as the years roll by it suddenly finds itself being called Meepo or Ratbag.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Family , Cats , Effort

“Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies, worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of the planet's large animals, and suddenly tiny versions of one of the worst of them wanders into the cave and starts to purr.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Animals

“Currently there's five machines permanently networked here. They all contain the serious core stuff. A couple of the machines are pensioned off 486s, with little other value now. Plus there's two Jaz drives in the building and the portable also carries a fair amount of stuff. Plus every Friday a man comes around and carves all the new stuff onto stone slabs and buries them in the garden… I think I'm okay.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Thinking

“I didn't go to university. Didn't even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Universe

“In Reading [England] there is this thing called the IDR, short for "Inner Distribution Road", which is bureaucratese for "Big thing that cost a lot of money and relieves traffic problems, provided all your traffic wants to orbit the town centre permanently". It's a 2-3 lane dual carriageway that goes round the town centre. It has lots of roundabouts, an overhead section, a couple of spare motorway-like exits (that's British motorways -- y'know, the roundabout with the main road going under it), and a thing called the Watlington Street Gyratory, where you have to get in lane for your intended destination about three years and two corners before you get there with no signposting. I used to cycle along it every day to get to school, before I fell off at 35 mph. [Kids! Don't try this at home! ] I know it well. I believe it is impossible to leave Reading heading west.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Money , School , Home , Problem

“I once absent-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

“As they say in Discworld, we are trying to unravel the Mighty Infinite using a language which was designed to tell one another where the fresh fruit was.”

Terry Pratchett

Relatively Einstein http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/relativelyeinstein.shtml episode 3, "Fantasy Physics" (18 January 2005); the Discworld version of this statement appears in Night Watch (2002)
General sources

“My programming language was solder.”

Terry Pratchett

On his early computers, from a talk "When I Were A Lad, We Used To Dream of 64K" at the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, Scotland, (August 2005)
General sources

“Well … welcome. My house is your house', his brow suddenly furrowed and he looked worried, 'although only in a metaphorical sense, you understand, because I would not, much as I always admired your straightforward approach, and indeed your forthright stance, actually give you my house, it being the only house I have, and therefore the term is being extended in an, as it were, gratuitous fashion”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

Fashion , Understanding , Sense , Housing

“I was thinking of 'duh?' in the sense of 'a sentence containing several words more than three letters long, and possibly requiring general knowledge or a sense of history that extends past last Tuesday, has been used in my presence.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

History , Knowledge , Thinking , Sense

“Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.”

Terry Pratchett

alt.fan.pratchett (22 November 1993) http://www.lspace.org/ftp/words/pqf/pqf
Usenet

“Boot-faced cats aren't born but made, often because they've tried to outstare or occasionally rape a speeding car and have been repaired by a vet who just pulled all the bits together and stuck the stitches in where there was room.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Cars , Cats , Speed

“What would Deftmenes be if we went around obeying orders all the time?'
'They might be ruling the Carpet,' said Pismire.
'Ha!' said Brocando, 'but the trouble about obeying orders is, it becomes a habit. And then everything depends on who's giving the orders.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

Time , Dependency

“The way to deal with an impossible task was to chop it down into a number of merely very difficult tasks, and break each one of them into a group of horribly hard tasks, and each of them into tricky jobs, and each of them…”

Terry Pratchett The Nome Trilogy

Truckers, Ch. 7
The Nome Trilogy (1989 - 1990)

Way

“While a book has got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the reader it's got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the writer as well.”

Terry Pratchett

alt.fan.pratchett (1 December 1998) http://www.lspace.org/fandom/afp/timelines/discussions/is-pterry-going-downhill.html
Usenet

Books

“A true beanie should have a propellor on the top.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

“Wikipedia, eh? Must be accurate then!”

Terry Pratchett

The age interview (17 Feb 2007) http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/meeting-mr-pratchett/2007/02/15/1171405371862.html?page=fullpage
General sources

“They can ta'k our lives but they can never ta'k our freedom!' Now there's a battle cry not designed by a clear thinker…”

Terry Pratchett

Referring to a statement in the movie Braveheart, at alt.fan.pratchett (11 January 1999) http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=2SwYaHAyOlm2EwG3%40unseen.demon.co.uk
Usenet

Freedom , Cry

“Bognor has always meant to me the quintessential English seaside experience (before all this global warming stuff): driving in the rain to get there, walking around in the rain looking for something to do when you're there, and driving home in the rain again…”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Home

“Stop that!' he shouted. 'You're soldiers! You're not supposed to fight!”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

Fight

“Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possibly go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Time , Housing

“I don’t mind authority, but not authoritarian authority. After all, the bus driver is allowed to be the boss of the bus. But if he’s bad at driving, he’s not going to be a bus driver anymore.”

Terry Pratchett

Interview with Cory Doctorow
Misc

“Anyway, just because you're sworn enemies doesn't mean you can't be friends, does it?”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

“What you have here is an example of that well known phenomenon, A Bookshop Assistant Who Knows Buggerall But Won't Admit It (probably some kind of arts graduate).”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Art

“I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Past

“It's amazing how fast gold works.”

Terry Pratchett

On building the clacks, at alt.fan.pratchett (18 June 2002) http://www.lspace.org/fandom/afp/timelines/discussions/building-the-clacks.html
Usenet

“DW is based on a slew of old myths, which reach their most 'refined' form in Hindu mythology, which in turn of course derived from the original Star Trek episode 'Planet of Wobbly Rocks where the Security Guard Got Shot.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Star

“"Educational" refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger.”

Terry Pratchett

In response to a comment that if television is educational because watching it can teach you a lot about society, then a cheeseburger is also educational, alt.fan.pratchett (15 October 1996) http://www.lspace.org/books/pqf/alt-fan-pratchett.html
Usenet

Education , Thinking , Teachers

“But we should kill him!'
'No. You've been listen to Brocando too often,' said Bane.
Brocando bristled. 'You know what he is! Why not kill--' he began, but he was interrupted.
'Because it doesn't matter what he is. It matters what we are.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

“The space between the young readers eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril.”

Terry Pratchett

No to Age banding Campaign http://www.notoagebanding.org/index.php?comments/authors
General sources

“There should be a notice ahead of the movie that says 'This movie is PG. Can you read? You are a Parent. Do you understand what Guidance is? Or are you just another stupid toddler who thinks they're an adult simply because they've grown older and, unfortunately, have developed fully-functioning sexual organs? Would you like some committee somewhere to decide *everything* for you? Get a damn grip, will you? And shut the wretched kid up!”

Terry Pratchett

alt.fan.pratchett (10 July 2001) http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=uu9i54Ab2rS7EACj%40unseen.demon.co.uk
Usenet

Stupidity , Understanding , Thinking , Parent

“The sign outside the shop said Apothecary, which meant that the shop was owned by a sort of early chemist, who would give you herbs and things until you got better or at least stopped getting any worse.”

Terry Pratchett book The Carpet People

The Carpet People (1971; 1992)

“Mort isn't fashionable UK movie material -- there're no parts in it for Hugh or Emma, it's not set in Sheffield, and no one shoves drugs up their bum…”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Fashion , Parting

“I'm referred to, I see, as 'the biggest banker in modern publishing'. Now there's a line that needed the celebrated Guardian proof-reading.”

Terry Pratchett

Usenet

Reading

“Our garden was debated territory between five local cats, and we'd heard that the best way to keep other cats out of the garden was to have one yourself. A moment's rational thought here will spot the slight flaw in this reasoning.”

Terry Pratchett book The Unadulterated Cat

The Unadulterated Cat (1989)

Way , Cats