Discworld Life Quotes & Sayings

Be a sponge. Spend as much time as possible with people who truly know their craft and be a great listener. That is how you learn. — Jerry Colangelo

Were I to be appointed Secretary of Education, I'd issue a prospectus for a compulsory nationwide high school course called 'The American Experience in Art.' — Terry Teachout

All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate. — Isaiah Berlin

I just think the world ought to be more sort of organized.'
'That's just fantasy,' said Twoflower.
'I know. That's the trouble.' Rincewind sighed again. — Terry Pratchett

The best man. You know? He hands you the ring and has to marry the bride if you ran away and so on. The Dean's been reading up on it, haven't you, Dean?"
"Oh, yes," said the Dean, who'd spent all the previous day with "Lady Deirdre Waggon's Book of Etiquette". "She's got to marry someone once she's turned up. You can't have unmarried brides flapping around the place, being a danger to society."
"I completely forgot about a best man!" said Vimes. — Terry Pratchett

In Ankh-Morpork even the shit have a street to itself," said Detritus, awe and wonder in his voice. "Truly, this a land of opportunity. — Terry Pratchett

Coming out's the hardest part, when you're Queen Elvis. — Robyn Hitchcock

Life could be horrible in the wrong trouser of time. — Terry Pratchett

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. — 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

Conscience is strong in women. Children are very violently taught that they owe all to their parents, and the parents are not slow in foreclosing the mortgage. But the home is not a debtor's prison - to girls any more than to boys. This enormous claim of parents calls for extermination. Do they in truth do all for their children; do their children owe all to them? Is nothing furnished in the way of safety, sanitation, education, by that larger home, the state? What could these parents do, alone, in never so pleasant a home, without the allied forces of society to maintain that home in peace and prosperity. These lingering vestiges of a patriarchal cult must be left behind. Ancestor-worship has had victims enough. Girls are human creatures as well as boys, and both have duties, imperative duties, quite outside the home. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

You haven't heard of him? And he is a D'reg!" Mrs Goriff pulled at her husband's arm.
"D'reg?" said Angua.
"A warlike desert tribe," said Carrot. "Very fierce. Honourable, though. They say that if a D'reg is your friend he's your friend for life."
"And if he's not your friend?"
"That's about five seconds. — Terry Pratchett

I ordered a wake-up call the other day. The phone rang and a woman's voice said, 'What the hell are you doing with your life?' — Demetri Martin

This is where I belong. Wherever you are. Always. — J. Daniels

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. — Terry Pratchett

No advocate of reason can claim the right to force his ideas on others. No advocate of the free mind can claim the right to force the minds of others. No rational society, no co-operation, no agreement, no understanding, no discussion are possible among men who propose to substitute guns for rational persuasion. — Ayn Rand

Mr Vimes," said Mrs Winkings, "ve cannot help but notice that you still haf not employed any of our members in the Vatch ... "
Say 'Watch', why don't you? Vimes thought. I know you can. Let the twenty-third letter of the alphabet enter your life. — Terry Pratchett

None of them even know who they are. They're just acting out their roles. Being what their parents made them. Always trying to be what's expected. It's exhausting. — Marie Sexton

Never ask the tight-rope walker how he keeps his balance. if he stops to think about it, he falls off — Terry Pratchett

You have no power over us, said the Auditor. We are notalive.
BUT YOU ARE DEMONSTRATING ARROGANCE, PRIDE AND STUPIDITY. THESE ARE EMOTIONS. I WOULD SAY THEY ARE SIGNS OF LIFE.
"Excuse me?" said the shining figure in white.
But you are all alone here!
"Excuse me?"
YES? said Death. WHAT IS IT?
"This is the Apocalypse, yes?" said the shining figure petulantly.
WE ARE TALKING.
"Yes, right, but is it the Apocalypse? The actual end of the actual whole world?"
No, said the Auditor.
YES, said Death. IT IS.
"Great!" said the figure.
What? said the Auditor.
WHAT? said Death. — Terry Pratchett

A camel in distress isn't a shy creature. It doesn't hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn't phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn't mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bedsitter. It doesn't know what angst is. — Terry Pratchett

What about the scar ... in my face. He managed to force out, couldn't
find the words, no better nor easier way to ask and even plead. Do you want me.
Do you honestly still want me?
Please, want me. — Aleksandr Voinov

For a witch stands on the very edge of everything, between the light and the dark, between life and death, making choices, making decisions so that others may pretend no decisions have even been needed. Sometimes they need to help some poor soul through the final hours, help them to find the door, not to get lost in the dark. — Terry Pratchett