Terry Pratchett Quotes & Sayings

Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself. — Terry Pratchett

You needed at least three witches for a coven. Two witches was just an argument. — Terry Pratchett

Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk. — Terry Pratchett

It was never easy being a witch. Oh, the broomstick was great, but to be a witch you needed to be sensible, so sensible that sometimes it hurt. You dealt with the reality - not what people wanted. — Terry Pratchett

Fear generates big profits. — Terry Pratchett

You'd better tell me what you know, toad," said Tiffany. "Miss Tick isn't here. I am."
"Another world is colliding with this one," said the toad. "There. Happy now? That's what Miss Tick thinks. But it's happening faster than she expected. All the monsters are coming back."
"Why?"
"There's no one to stop them."
There was silence for a moment.
"There's me," said Tiffany. — Terry Pratchett

Esk wouldn't have known what a collective noun was if it had spat in her eye, but she knew there was a herd of goats and a coven of witches. — Terry Pratchett

I'm sorry. I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places." "Perhaps — Terry Pratchett

I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find out what they are good at, because someone doing what they really like is always an asset to any country, and too often people never find out until it is too late. 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 ... Learning is about finding out who you are, what you are, where you are and what you are standing on and what you are good at and what's over the horizon and, well, everything. Its about finding the place where you fit. I found the place where I fit, and I would like everybody else to find theirs. - Tiffany Aching — Terry Pratchett

HAS IT NEVER STRUCK YOU THAT THE CONCEPT OF A WRITTEN NARRATIVE IS SOMEWHAT STRANGE? said Death. — Terry Pratchett

(wizards, even failed wizards, have in addition to rods and cones in their eyeballs the tiny octagons that enable them to see into the far octarine, the basic colour of which all other colours are merely pale shadows impinging on normal four-dimensional space. It is said to be a sort of fluorescent greenish-yellow purple). — Terry Pratchett

And had a face like a bulldog licking vinegar off a thistle ... — Terry Pratchett

Fate don't like it when people take up more space than they ought to ... — Terry Pratchett

The dark organ music filled the Department of Post-Mortem Communications. Moist assumed it was all part of the ambience, although the mood would have been more precisely obtained if the tune it was playing did not appear to be Cantate and Fugue for someone Who Has Trouble with the Pedals. — Terry Pratchett

The invisible people knew that happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in. — Terry Pratchett

Vampires have risen from the dead, the grave, and the crypt, but have never managed it from the cat. — Terry Pratchett

The day had, in fact, reached that gentle point when it was too late for housebreaking and too early for burglary. — Terry Pratchett

Of course, Ankh-Morpork's citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed. — Terry Pratchett

The best research you can do is to talk to people. — Terry Pratchett

Where's the pleasure in bein' the winner if the loser ain't alive to know they've lost? — Terry Pratchett

They couldn't do anything worse to him than he had coming to him already. He felt free at last. — Terry Pratchett

Nothing but stars, scattered across the blackness as though the Creator had smashed the windscreen of his car and hadn't bothered to stop to sweep up the pieces. — Terry Pratchett

It's an interesting fact that fewer than 17 % of Real cats end their lives with the same name they started with. Much family effort goes into selecting one at the start ("She looks like a Winnifred to me"), and the as the years roll by it suddenly finds itself being called Meepo or Ratbag. — Terry Pratchett

Witches didn't have leaders, of course, but everyone knew that Granny Weatherwax had been the best leader they didn't have, so now someone else would need to step forward to generally steer the witches. — Terry Pratchett

He didn't say "that's weird". He wouldn't have said "that's weird" if a flock of sheep had cycled past playing violins. It wasn't the sort of thing a responsible engineer said. — Terry Pratchett

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, 'But we've always done it this way.' A million dead people can't have been wrong, can they? — Terry Pratchett

Tortoises are not well equipped for cross-country navigation. They need longer legs or shallower ditches. — Terry Pratchett

There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell. — Terry Pratchett

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

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. — Terry Pratchett

There was no himself in himself. — Terry Pratchett

You'll learn there is another rule. Esme's obeyed it all her life." "And what's that?" "When you break rules, break 'em good and hard," said — Terry Pratchett

And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up. — Terry Pratchett

Years ago, when it underwent a rapid increase to the current level of 21%. The amount of oxygen in today's atmosphere is far greater than could ever be sustained without the influence of living creatures, which not only produce oxygen in huge quantities but use it up again, in particular — Terry Pratchett

The commander went, as they say in Ankh-Morpork, totally Librarian on them. — Terry Pratchett

Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out. — Terry Pratchett

Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It's unreliable levers that are the problem. — Terry Pratchett

In some parts of the city, curiosity didn't just kill the cat, it threw it in the river with lead weights tied to its feet. — Terry Pratchett

They say that it'll hit us on Hogswatchnight and the seas will boil and the countries of the Disc will be broken and kings will be brought down and the cities will be as lakes of glass,' said the man. 'I'm off to the mountains.' 'That'll help, will it?' said Rincewind doubtfully. 'No, but the view will be better. — Terry Pratchett

It wasn't even a bar. It was just a room where people drank while they waited for other people with whom they had business. The business usually involved the transfer of ownership of something from one person to another, but then, what business doesn't? — Terry Pratchett

There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can't take it any more. — Terry Pratchett

The Librarian was, of course, very much in favor of reading in general, but readers in particular got on his nerves. There was something, well, sacrilegious about the way they kept taking books off the shelves and wearing out the words by reading them. He liked people who loved and respected books, and the best way to do that, in the Librarian's opinion, was to leave them on the shelves where Nature intended them to be. The — Terry Pratchett

The fact is that camels are far more intelligent than dolphins. They are so much brighter that they soon realised that the most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendants not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships or being patronized rigid by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it. So they long ago plumped for a lifestyle that, in return for a certain amount of porterage and being prodded with sticks, allowed them adequate food and grooming and the chance to spit in a human's eye and get away with it. — Terry Pratchett

Welcome to fear, Moist said to himself. It's hope, turned inside out. — Terry Pratchett

I certainly don't sit down and plan a book out before I write it. There's a phrase I use called "The Valley Full of Clouds." Writing a novel is as if you are going off on a journey across a valley. The valley is full of mist, but you can see the top of a tree here and the top of another tree over there. And with any luck you can see the other side of the valley. But you cannot see down into the mist. Nevertheless, you head for the first tree. — Terry Pratchett

We've got a lot of experience of not having any experience — Terry Pratchett

We don't want any - " he began, and ought to have chosen his words better, because they were his epitaph. It — Terry Pratchett

I found while driving in Wyoming that wearing a stetson and driving a beat-up pickup meant you could go as fast as you like, while the police picked up Californian winnebagos that went one mph over 55. After all, they wanted to bring money into the state, not merely circulate it. — Terry Pratchett

Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four. — Terry Pratchett

You took an oath to uphold the law and defend the citizens without fear or favor," said Vimes. "And to protect the innocent. That's all they put in. Maybe they thought those were the important things. Nothing in there about orders, even from me. You're an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government. — Terry Pratchett

Look, the life of gnomes and goblins is nasty, brutish and short. So are they. — Terry Pratchett

Well, child? Aren't you going to try to turn me into some kind of unspeakable creature?
I don't think I shall bother, madam, seeing as you are making such a good job of it yourself! — Terry Pratchett

Mort remembered the woodcut in his grandmother's almanack, between the page on planting times and the phases of the moon section, showing Dethe thee Great Levyller Comes To Alle Menne. He'd stared at it hundreds of times when learning his letters. It wouldn't have been half so impressive if it had been generally known that the flame-breathing horse the specter rode was called Binky. — Terry Pratchett

We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am. — Terry Pratchett

The gods," he said. "Imprisoned in a thought. And perhaps they were never more than a dream. — Terry Pratchett

The trouble with thinking was that, once you started, you went on doing it. — Terry Pratchett

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they're just infested with lots of stuff. — Terry Pratchett

All he had was nothing, but that was something, and now it had been taken away. — Terry Pratchett

Then Tak looked upon the stone and it was trying to come alive, and Tak smiled, and wrote All things strive.

And for the service the stone had given, he fashioned it into the first Troll, and delighted in the life that came unbidden. — Terry Pratchett

was to magic what a bicycle is to a bumblebee, he nevertheless — Terry Pratchett

Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds. — Terry Pratchett

Susan had never before come across the idea that you could rise in Society by, as it were, gaining marks, especially since such noblemen as she'd met in her father's house had used neither serviette nor napkin but a state of mind, which was Drop it on the floor, the dogs'll eat it. — Terry Pratchett

Important lesson there: you don't survive in the field by obeying all the
rules, including those relating to mental processes — Terry Pratchett

Tak did not expect the stone to have life, but when it did, he smiled upon it, saying "All Things Strive". Time and time again the last testament of Tak has been stolen in a pathetic attempt to kill the nascent future at birth and this is not only an untruth, it is a blasphemy! Tak even finds it in his heart to suffer the Nac Mac Feegles, possibly for their entertainment value, but I wonder if he will continue to tolerate us ... He must look at us now with sorrow, which I hope will not turn into rage. Surely the patience of Tak must find some limitations elsewhere ... — Terry Pratchett

A good cook is always the first one into the kitchen every morning and the last one to go home at night. — Terry Pratchett

I know nothing about her. Just some books, and some stories she tried to tell me, and things I didn't understand, and I remember big red soft hands and that smell. I never knew who she really was. I mean, she must have been nine too, once. — Terry Pratchett

Bad spelling can be lethal. — Terry Pratchett

Child. That was a terrible thing to say to anyone who was almost thirteen. — Terry Pratchett

Young women should not go alone on dark nights, even in Oxfordshire. But any prowling maniac would have had more than his work cut out if he had accosted Anathema Device. She was a witch, after all. And precisely because she was a witch, and therefore sensible, she put little faith in protective amulets and spells; she saved it all for a foot-long bread knife which she kept in her belt. — Terry Pratchett

It's not that he doesn't appreciate beauty, he just appreciates it in his own way. I mean, if a poet sees a daffodil he stares at it and writes a long poem about it, but Twoflower wanders off to find a book on botany. — Terry Pratchett

It is well known that any drive to reduce paperwork only results in extra paperwork — Terry Pratchett

And some had been idiots as mad as Swing, with a view of the world just as rigid and unreal, who were on the side of what they called "The People." Vimes had spent his life on the streets and had met decent men, and fools, and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar, and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People. — Terry Pratchett

The labyrinth of Ephebe is ancient and full of one hundred and one amazing things you can do with hidden springs, razor-sharp knives, and falling rocks. — Terry Pratchett

My dream holiday would be a) a ticket to Amsterdam b) immunity from
prosecution and c) a baseball bat. — Terry Pratchett

Death, although of course completely eyeless, watched Rincewind disappearing with what would, had His face possessed any mobility at all, have been a frown. Death, although exceptionally busy at all times, decided that He now had a hobby. There was something about the wizard that irked Him beyond measure. He didn't keep appointments, for one thing. — Terry Pratchett

Thick coils of smoke hung in the air, perhaps to avoid touching the walls. — Terry Pratchett

If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged — Terry Pratchett

You see the lighted windows and what you want to think is that there may be many interesting stories behind them, but what you know is that really there are just dull, dull souls, mere consumers of food, who think their instincts are emotions and their tiny lives of more account than a whisper of wind. — Terry Pratchett

But here's some advice, boy. Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. — Terry Pratchett

He isn't looking at the view because his past life keeps flashing in front of his eyes and getting in the way — Terry Pratchett

The International Express man couldn't understand it. I mean, in the old days, and it wasn't that long ago really, there had been an angler every dozen yards along the bank; children had played there; courting couples had come to listen to the splish and gurgle of the river, and to hold hands, and to get all lovey-dovey in the Sussex sunset. He'd done that with Maud, his missus, before they were married. They'd come here to spoon and, on one memorable occasion, fork."
From "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman. — Terry Pratchett

Death's pale horse looked up from its oats and gave a little whinny of greeting. The horse's name was Binky. He was a real horse. Death had tried fiery steeds and skeletal horses in the past, and found them impractical, especially the fiery ones, which tended to set light to their own bedding and stand in the middle of it looking embarrassed. — Terry Pratchett

I THINK NOT. I WASN'T CUT OUT TO BE A FATHER, AND CERTAINLY NOT A GRANDAD. I HAVEN'T GOT THE RIGHT KIND OF KNEES. — Terry Pratchett

Best way to get something done is to give it to someone who is busy, said Vetinari. — Terry Pratchett

Fair?" said the Sea Queen. She moved forward. Om felt her all around him.
"There's no such thing," she said. "Life's like a beach. And then you die. — Terry Pratchett

It had very punctual prophets. You could set your calendar by them, if you had one big enough. — Terry Pratchett

That's how we survive infinity - we kill it by breaking it up into small bits. — Terry Pratchett

Definitely that kind of owner, he thought. Self-made man proud of his handiwork. Confuses bluffness and honesty with merely being rude. I wouldn't mind betting a dollar that he thinks he can tell a man's character by testing the firmness of his handshake and looking deeply into his eyes. — Terry Pratchett

Rincewind had been generally reckoned by his tutors to be a natural wizard in the same way that fish are natural mountaineers. — Terry Pratchett

A real alchemical laboratory should be full of the kind of glassware that looked as if it were produced during the Guild of Glassblowers All-Comers Hiccuping Contest. — Terry Pratchett

It was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying. — Terry Pratchett

Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought. — Terry Pratchett

What is normal? Normal is yesterday and last week and last month taken together — Terry Pratchett

Well, I suppose there's no place like home," she said. "No," said Granny Weatherwax, still looking thoughtful. "No. There's a billion places like home. But only one of 'em's where you live. — Terry Pratchett

Those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn't. She was like that. She didn't like the clicking of rosaries, but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man knew what She looked like, although there were many times when a man who was gambling his life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand he had been dealt and stare Her full in the face. Of course, sometimes he didn't. Among all the gods she was at one and the same time the most courted and the most cursed. — Terry Pratchett

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

He's a bit set in his ways."
"Congealed, I should think. — Terry Pratchett

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong. — Terry Pratchett

The voice went into his head, bored down through his memories, riffled through his fears, found the right levers, battened onto them, and pulled. In Moist's case, it found Frau Shambers. In the second year at school, you were precipitated out of the warm, easygoing kindergarten of Frau Tissel, smelling of finger paint, playdough, and inadequate toilet training, and onto the cold benches governed by Frau Shambers, smelling of Education. It was as bad as being born, with the added disadvantage that your mother wasn't there. Moist — Terry Pratchett

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages. — Terry Pratchett