Terry Pratchett Quotes

page 5

“… it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.”

“Susan says, don't get afraid, get angry.”

“She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it.”

“Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.”

“Bursar?"
"Yes, Archchancellor?"
"You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you?"
"Me? No, Archchancellor."
"Then it'd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head.”

“Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.”

“Heaven has no taste."
"Now-"
"And not one single sushi restaurant."
A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.”

“Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a
red flag to a bu… was like putting something very annoying in front of
someone who was annoyed by it.”

“People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.”

“Listen, Peaches, is what humans are all about," said the voice of Maurice. "They're so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them.”

“It was quite impossible to describe.

Here is what it looked like.

It looked like a piano sounds shortly after being dropped down a well. It tasted yellow, and it felt Paisley. It smelled like the total eclipse of the moon.”

“Hello, inner child, I'm the inner babysitter!”

“THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU, Death continued. THEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL IN MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES. FASCINATING.”

“An Assassin, a real Assassin, had to look like one - black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?”

“The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used itadded the rider 'and that someone is me'.”

“There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.”

“Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole.”

“We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.”

“The turtle moves.”

“I was merely endeavoring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat.
-Lord Vetinari”

“A weapon you held and didn't know how to use belonged to your enemy.”

“Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.”

“It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things, provided you were bad enough to be funny.”

“And just when you’d think [humans] were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they occasionally showed more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of.”

“I’m not superstitious. I’m a witch. Witches aren’t superstitious. We are what people are superstitious of.”

“William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”

“The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.”

“The worst thing you can do is nothing.”

“Rincewind tried to force the memory out of his mind, but it was rather enjoying itself there, terrorizing the other occupants and kicking over the furniture.”

“Despite rumor, Death isn't cruel--merely terribly, terribly good at his job.”

“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”

“Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.”

“Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”
“Sir?”
“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”
“Sir?”
“That’s practically zen.”

“Oh yes? Can you identify yourself?
-Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.”

“Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.”

“People aren't just people, they are people surrounded by circumstances.”

“Oh, Ivery angry a lot of the time," said Tiffany, "but I just put it away somewhere until I can do something useful with it.”

“They think written words are even more powerful,’ whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.”

“I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people.”

“If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged”

“Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.”

“The thing is, I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think, “What about me?” and you can just hear the universe replying, “Well, what about you?”

“Ninety percent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.”

“The librarians were mysterious. It was said they could tell what book you needed just by looking at you, and they could take your voice away with a word.”

“Every intelligent being, whether it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time in its life.”

“Chances are where you find them”

“It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed', although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.”

“Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.”

“It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone’s mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.”