Terry Pratchett Quotes

page 9

“Because some stories end, but old stories go on, and you gotta dance to the music if you want to stay ahead”

“It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.”

“Truth! Freedom! Justice! And a hard-boiled egg!”

“Death strode away, stopped, and came back. He pointed a skeletal finger at The Duck Man.
WHY, he said, ARE YOU WALKING AROUND WITH THAT DUCK?
"What duck?"
AH. SORRY.”

“[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.”

“In an instant he became aware that the tourist was about to try his own peculiar brand of linguistics, which meant that he would speak loudly and slowly in his own language.”

“Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.”

“Silverfish looked down.
"Oh. Are you a dwarf?"
Cuddy gave him a blank stare.
"Are you a giant?" He said.
"Me? Of course not!"
"Ah. Then I must be a dwarf, yes.”

“FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT….”

“He'd heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true.”

“Magic never dies. It merely fades away.”

“I believe in reincarnation,” [Bjorn] said.
I KNOW.
“I tried to live a good life. Does that help?”
THAT’S NOT UP TO ME. Death coughed. OF COURSE… SINCE YOU BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION… YOU’LL BE BJORN AGAIN.”

“The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.”

“Just call in at the torturer on your way out. See when he can fit you in.”

“But that was just it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.”

“You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home.”

“Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.”

“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.”

“After all, when you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.”

“There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.”

“When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point- of-view is seldom necessary.”

“As large as worlds. As old as Time. As patient as a brick.”

“In order to have a change of fortune at the last minute, you have to take your fortune to the last minute.”

“People are often so busy living that they never stop to wonder why.”

“There was a man and he had eight sons. Apart from that, he was nothing more than a comma on the page of History. It's sad, but that's all you can say about some people.”

“Tragic heroes always moan when the gods take an interest in them, but it's the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals.”

“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.”

“See a pin and pick it up, and, all day long, you'll have a pin.”

“They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down…”

“The jurisdiction of a good man extends to the end of the world.”

“Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do.”

“The city's full of people who you just see around.”

“‎No one remembers the singer. The song remains.”

“No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.”

“The Departure Aria, a very important and romantic song”

“Things just happen, one after another. They don't care who knows. But… ah, history is different. History has to be observed. Otherwise it's not history. It's just… well, things happening one after another.”

“We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake?”

“Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows -- sometimes it does not need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips.”

“These weren't cheap modern books; these were books bound in leather, and not just leather, but leather from clever cows who had given their lives for literature after a happy existence in the very best pastures.”

“First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.”

“Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you.”

“Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent protection.”

“It’s quite easy to accidentally overhear people talking downstairs if you hold an upturned glass to the floorboards and accidentally put your ear to it.”

“Letitia! What a name. Halfway between a salad and a sneeze.”

“Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like 'What is my purpose in life?' very quickly lacked both.”

“Even the blind and meek and voiceless have gods.”

“It's hard to explain," said Brutha. "But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave… you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.”

“Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should.”

“[Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it!”