Terry Pratchett Quotes

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear we might not be.”

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

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

“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.”

“The world is a globe — the farther you sail, the closer to home you are.”

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

“I thought unicorns were more… Fluffy.”

“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.”

“And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be
living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got
you invited to the very best social occasions.”

“He had about the same life expectancy as a three legged hedgehog on a six lane motorway.”

“… 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.”

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

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

“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.”

“Everywhere I look, I see something holy.”

“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!”

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

“Words are the litmus paper of the mind.”

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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”

“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].”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

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

“Imagination, not intelligence, made us human.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”