Terry Pratchett Quotes

The public thinks big, sensible, measured thoughts while people run around doing silly things

We're living in science fiction, but we don't realize it.

I really should talk to him. He's had a near-death experience!”"We all have. It's called living."(Hogfather)

You mean it's my destiny? she said at last.Granny shrugged. Something like that. Probably. Who knows?

You mean it's my destiny?" she said at last.Granny shrugged. “Something like that. Probably. Who knows?

The beagle and the kobold approached, walking out of the dusty distance.

Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Only presumptuous fools plan. The wise man steers.

And the people of Ankh-Morpork are so thirsty for novelty that the whole city is, you might say, hurrying the future along for the sheer joy of watching its progress.

But all them things exist, " said Nanny Ogg. "That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.

Gods didn’t mind atheists, if they were deep, hot, fiery, atheists like Simony, who spend their whole life hating gods for not existing. That sort of atheism was a rock. It was nearly belief …

Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.

Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.

Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.

WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.

A witch relied too much on words ever to go back on them.

You trust him?" he said. "No, " said Hastur. "Right, " said Ligur. It's be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another.

After all, if you can't trust governments, whom can you trust?

Daphne’s thought in Nation: This was no time to go totally mad. You had to maintain standards.

Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?‘Yes. Yes, of course.’Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.

Dullness. Only humans could have invented it. What imaginations they had.

That's Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

It's an unfair world, Child. Be glad you have friends.

What is magic?There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day.

Time travel was only a kind of magic, after all. That's why it always went wrong.

It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done.

Look at it like this, it's not that we're making life, we're simply giving life a place to live.

It's witchcraft with all the crusts cut off, and real witchcraft is ALL crusts.

A good motto in life, he'd reckoned, was: don't eat anything that glows.

The sun set, which is everyday magic...

She told me that if magic gives people what they want, then not using magic can give them what they need.

You can't not help people just because they're stupid or forgetful or unpleasant... If I don't help them, who will?

Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you.

I AM ALWAYS ALONE. BUT JUST NOW I WANT TO BE ALONE BY MYSELF.

Why us?" he said. "Why is it happening to us?""Everything has to happen to someone, " said Ginger.

And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So who is "me"?

When people talk about their great past they're usually trying to excuse the mediocre present.

It is a mystery, ' said Detritus.Vimes grinned mirthlessly. It was a mystery. And he didn't like mysteries. Mysteries had a way of getting bigger if you didn't solve them quickly. Mysteries pupped.

-Oh yes? Can you identify yourself?-Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.

(About a cookbook...)- What about this one? Maids of Honor?- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.

Aargh! I’m too short for this shit!

... a metaphor ... is like lying but more decorative.

I am not so blind that I can't see darkness.

Measurements is your saving grace if you want to raise steam.

TO CHANGE THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL IS TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

The flip side of the coin of which Good and Evil are but one side.

... it is to your credit that you recognize that if he was a monster then it was other monstrous things which made him so. The iron forged on the anvil cannot be blamed for the hammer...

You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right?

I guess the truth is nobody told this smart kid that communication between such divergent life forms was impossible, so he just went ahead and did it anyhow.

He was red with anger, except where he was white with rage. When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits.

Anger was a weapon to be honed and treasured and used only at the moment yielding most premium.