Terry Pratchett Quotes

Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad.

The universe was bad enough without people poking it.

Last night there seemed to be a chance. Anything was possible last night. That was the trouble with last nights. They were always followed by this mornings.

Sister Mary was a nurse and nurses, whatever their creed, are primarily nurses, which had a lot to do with wearing your watch upside down, keeping calm in emergencies, and dying for a cup of tea.

Raising the flag and singing the anthem are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason.

One of the things forgotten about the human spirit is that while it is, in the right conditions, noble and brave and wonderful, it is also, when you get right down to it, only human.

He felt as if he had been shipwrecked on the Titanic, but in the nick of time had been rescued. By the Lusitania

This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world. And Fate always wins.

And what had he wanted? He'd never sat down to think about it. But mostly, he wanted yesterday to be different from today.

The more you think about it, the more amazing the everyday world of human beings becomes: most of it doesn't actually exist at all.

Winston Churchill said 'In war time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies'. Any book called The Truth should therefore have one.

Occasionally he would very nearly swear.

It is at this point that normal language gives up, and goes and has a drink.

I’ve seen excitement, and I’ve seen boredom. And boredom was best.

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

That, lad," he said proudly, "was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul....We'll make a gonnagle out of ye yet!

I don't think about the end game. I've got lots to occupy my mind. It's the rage that keeps me going.

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.

Ordinary fortune-tellers tell you what you want to happen; witches tell you what’s going to happen whether you want it to or not. Strangely enough, witches tend to be more accurate but less popular.

Look out! He's got a daisy!

Ach, people are always telling us not to do things" said Rob Anybody, "that's how we ken the most interesting things to do.

Money doesn't buy happiness, Gytha." "I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks!

The book is not completely written until someone else has read it.

Most people who have found that they are more intelligent than most around them, have yet to learn that one of the most intelligent things they can do is prevent said people ever finding this out.

When much is taken, something is returned.

You were safe on a troll. Anyone wanting to mug a troll would have to use a building on a stick.

Witches aren’t like that. We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.

Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent," said Miss Susan. "But answers do.

Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man!

All holy piety in public, and all peeled grapes and self-indulgence in private.

Life doesn't happen in chapters - at least, not regular ones.

My character - and for that matter my worst habits - could only be described by someone else. You can't open a box with the crowbar inside it.

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

She walked quickly through the darkness with the frank stride of someone who was at least certain that the forest, on this damp and windy night, contained strange and terrible things and she was it.

I don't want to hurt you, Mistress Weatherwax," said Mrs Gogol. "That's good," said Granny. "I don't want you to hurt me either.

Stop stealing the funeral meats right now, you wee scuggers!" She shouted. The Feegles stopped and stared at her. Then Rob Anybody said: "Socks wi'oot feets?

...Roland de Chumsfanleigh (it wasn't his fault).

Because no man wants to be a coward in front of a cheese.

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

Don't you *ever* let go?" "I haven't yet." "Why?" "I suppose... because in this world, after everyone panics, there's always got to be someone to tip the wee out of the shoe.

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

History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a long time.

My programming language was solder.

Granny Weatherwas was not a jouster in the lists of love, but, as an intelligent onlooker, she knew how the game was played.

You get all sorts of people in the library, and the librarian gets it all.

I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that's it. You tell the truth. I even wrote a book called 'The Truth'.

People don't like to say Fantasy they say Magic Realism which means Fantasy written by somebody I went to university with.

No, I happen to be one of those people whose memory shuts down under pressure. The answers would come to me in the middle of the night in my sleep! Besides, I am a millionaire.

Wikipedia, eh? Must be accurate then.

While a book has got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the reader it's got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the writer as well.