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Terry Pratchett Quotes
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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 quotes906 likes

Terry Pratchett Quotes

“Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

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

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Cited in Power Quotes: For Life, Business, and Leadership (2018) by Danai Krokou, ISBN 1-63157-750-6
General sources
Source: Wyrd Sisters

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“When in doubt, choose to live.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

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

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

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

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

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

Terry Pratchett

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

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

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

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

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Color of Magic

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

Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Source: Going Postal

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

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

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

Terry Pratchett book Feet of Clay

Source: Feet of Clay

“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?”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

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

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

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

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

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

Terry Pratchett book Men at Arms

Source: Men at Arms

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

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

Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Source: Going Postal

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

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

“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.”

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Color of Magic

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

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

“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…”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Nation

Source: Nation

“Grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

“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.”

Terry Pratchett

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

Terry Pratchett book The Fifth Elephant

Source: The Fifth Elephant

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

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

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

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Color of Magic

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

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

“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.”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

Source: Moving Pictures

“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.”

Terry Pratchett

“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!”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“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”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!