1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett Quotes
page 6

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

“In the words of the philosopher Sceptum, the founder of my profession: am I going to get paid for this?”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

“DO I DETECT A NOTE OF UNSEASONAL GRUMPINESS? said Death. NO SUGAR PIGGYWIGGY FOR YOU, ALBERT.”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

“It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country," he read. "This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.”

Terry Pratchett book Jingo

Source: Jingo

“The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you’ve got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You’ve got to stop. You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

“Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

“Crowley (An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards)”

Terry Pratchett

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

“Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn’t do good for people, she did right by them.”

Terry Pratchett book Carpe Jugulum

Source: Carpe Jugulum

“We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.'

Precisely,' said a passing bush.”

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Color of Magic

“Million-to-one chances… crop up nine times out of ten.”

Terry Pratchett book Equal Rites

Source: Equal Rites

“You know, you're rather amusingly wrong.”

Terry Pratchett book Maskerade

Source: Maskerade

“Sometimes words need music too. Sometimes the descriptions are not enough. Books should be written with soundtracks, like films.”

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Bromeliad Trilogy

“The trouble with thinking was that, once you started, you went on doing it.”

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“I'm trying to remember how you tell the time by looking at the sun." -"I should leave it for a while, it's too bright to see the numbers at the moment.”

Terry Pratchett book The Last Continent

Source: The Last Continent

“He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

“I thought unicorns were more… Fluffy.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.”

Terry Pratchett book Eric

Source: Eric

“… no-one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away… The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

“The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.”

Terry Pratchett book Unseen Academicals

Source: Unseen Academicals

“One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
Someone had stolen a book.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

“Everywhere I look, I see something holy.”

Terry Pratchett book Carpe Jugulum

Source: Carpe Jugulum

“Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where's your coffee? You've got coffee, haven't you? C'mon, everyone's got coffee! Spill the beans!”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

“The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as "Things just happen. What the hell".”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

“Words are the litmus paper of the mind.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

“But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

“I USHERED SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD. I WAS THE GRAVE OF ALL HOPE. I WAS THE ULTIMATE REALITY. I WAS THE ASSASSIN AGAINST WHOM NO LOCK WOULD HOLD.
"Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

“I think," he said, "I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

“The thing about witchcraft," said Mistress Weatherwax, "is that it's not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterward you spend years findin' out how you passed it. It's a bit like life in that respect”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“No matter what she did with her hair it took about three minutes for it to tangle itself up again, like a garden hosepipe in a shed [Which, no matter how carefully coiled, will always uncoil overnight and tie the lawnmower to the bicycles].”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

“There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Source: Sourcery

“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

“If you want to change a whole people, then you start with the girls. It stands to reason: they learn faster, and they pass on what they learn to their children.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

“They always gives me bath salts," complained Nobby. "And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad (1991)

“I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“Imagination, not intelligence, made us human.”

Terry Pratchett

Foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1998) by David Pringle, ISBN 0-87951-937-1</small>, and The Definitive Illustrated Guide to Fantasy (2003) by David Pringle, <small> ISBN 1-84442-930-X
General sources

“If you really want to upset a witch, do her a favor which she has no means of repaying. The unfulfilled obligation will nag at her like a hangnail.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

“The trouble with life was that you didn’t get a chance to practice before doing it for real.”

Terry Pratchett book Pyramids

Source: Pyramids

“All assassins had a full-length mirror in their rooms, because it would be a terrible insult to anyone to kill them when you were badly dressed.”

Terry Pratchett book Pyramids

Source: Pyramids

“Don't you understand?" snarled Rincewind. "We are going over the Edge, godsdammit!"
"Can't we do anything about it?"
"No!"
"Then I can't see the sense in panicking," said Twoflower calmly.”

Terry Pratchett

Source: The Color of Magic

“He said it was better to belong where you don't belong than not to belong where you used to belong, remembering when you used to belong there.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“IT'S THE EXPRESSION ON THEIR LITTLE FACES I LIKE, said the Hogfather.
"You mean sort of fear and awe and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?"
YES. NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL BELIEF.”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

“And gears," said Anathema. "My bike didn't have gears. I'm sure my bike didn't have gears."

Crowley leaned over to the angel. "Oh lord, heal this bike," he whispered sarcastically.

"I'm sorry, I just got carried away," hissed Aziraphale.”

Terry Pratchett

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

“They'd smash up the world if they thought it would make a pretty noise.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies