Terry Pratchett Quotes

Everyone's heard of Erwin Schrodinger's famous thought experiment. You put a cat in a box with a bottle of poison, which many people would suggest is about as far as you need to go.

Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.

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

Once upon a time the plural of 'wizard' was 'war'.

I can't be talking to a tree. If I was talking to a tree I'd be mad, and I'm not mad, so trees can't talk.

Imagination is only intelligence having fun. A healthy mind knows how to switch between worlds, and which one you need to eat and sleep in.

When a man is tired of Ankh-Morpork, he is tired of ankle-deep slurry.

Truly, he thought, the way of enlightenment is like unto half a mile of broken glass.

If failure had no penalty success would not be a prize.

Every step is a first step if it's a step in the right direction.

THERE'S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US.

The enemy isn’t men, or women, it’s bloody stupid people and no-one has the right to be stupid.

Granny Weatherwax was not a good loser. From her point of view, losing was something that happened to other people.

Good or bad, do it as you. Too many lies and there's no truth to go back to.

He was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were.

It's a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi' a toad

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

But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.

This was not a fairy-tale castle and there was no such thing as a fairy-tale ending, but sometimes you could threaten to kick the handsome prince in the ham-and-eggs.

If there were such a thing as an inter-city thieving contest, Ankh-Morpork would bring home the trophy and probably everyone’s wallets.

He'd been an angel once. He hadn't meant to Fall. He'd just hung around with the wrong people.

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.

Whole new theories of money were growing here like mushrooms: in the dark and based on bullshit.

The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.

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.

Oh. I see. People don't want to see what can't possibly exist.

In theory it was, around now, Literature. Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.

I don’t think it's weak to admit you made a mistake. That takes strength, if you ask me.

Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves.

Just because something is a metaphor doesn't mean it can't be real.

Or -- and this she knew was a far more accurate way of looking at it -- the book was true and reality was lying.

When you break rules, break 'em good and hard

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.

Preston, I don't think this creature could ever find its way into your head. Quite apart from anything else, it seems pretty crowded and complicated to me.

If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.

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.

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.

Don't look back!" "Why not?" "Because I just did! Run faster!

We're on a mission from Glod.

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

… you were so worried about legal and illegal that you never stopped to think about whether it was right or wrong.

The Captain of the Watch says if you're still in the City by sunrise he will personally have you buried alive.

You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?

Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.

He looked up at them, a scruffy Napoleon with his laces trailing, exiled to a rose-trellised Elba.

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

He sighed. It had come to this. He was a responsible authority, and people could use terms like "core values" at him with impunity.

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

I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people.

Humanity's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.