Terry Pratchett Quotes

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“Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.”

“Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it."

"No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.”

“He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.”

“When in doubt, choose to live.”

“The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.”

“Real children do not go hoppity skip unless they are on drugs.”

“Of course I'm sane, when trees start talking to me, I don't talk back.”

“This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”

“People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.”

“A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.”

“No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.”

“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”

“Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.”

“There was this about vampires : they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were… what was the word… deshabille. It meant untidy, but with bags and bags of style.”

“She was also, by the standards of other people, lost. She would not see it like that. She knew where she was, it was just that everywhere else didn't.”

“Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk.”

“I get it,' said the prisoner. 'Good Cop, Bad Cop, eh?'
If you like.' said Vimes. 'But we're a bit short staffed here, so if I give you a cigarette would you mind kicking yourself in the teeth?”

“Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house.”

“What's a philosopher?' said Brutha.
Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,' said a voice in his head.”

“The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.”

“Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them”

“Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.”

“She walked quickly through the darkness with the frank stride of someone who was at least certain that the forest, on this damp and windy night, contained strange and terrible things and she was it.”

“I commend my soul to any god that can find it.”

“Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.”

“Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.”

“The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn't sure it was worth all the effort.”

“She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do.
And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find
herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.”

“YOU FEAR TO DIE?
"It's not that I don't want… I mean, I've always… it's just that life is a habit that's hard to break…”

“Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care.”

“They didn't know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you've got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you're alive, when you really shouldn't be.”

“Grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue.”

“The secret is not to dream," she whispered. "The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I'm going. You cannot fool me any more. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.”

“Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.”

“The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.”

“I'm not the world's greatest expert, but I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns,… broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue?' - when J. K. Rowling insisted she wasn't writing fantasy.”

“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”

“Open your eyes and then open your eyes again.”

“Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.”

“Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant 'idiot'.”

“People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.”

“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”

“A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

“Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.”

“Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.”

“Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time.”

“Yes! I'm! I am careful and logical and I look up things I don't understand! When I hear people use the wrong words, I get edgy! I am good with cheese. I read books fast! I! And I always have a piece of string! That's the kind of person I am!”

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people”

“Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.”