Pratchett Reading Quotes & Sayings

I liked climbing trees and could often be found up one reading a book. I played games with Dad and drew maps for him on isometric paper. It was very bonding. — Rhianna Pratchett

And don't forget the presents," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as if reading off some internal list of gloom. "How ... how full of potential they seem in all that paper, how pregnant with possibilities ... and then you open them and basically the wrapping paper was more interesting and you have to say 'How thoughtful, that will come in handy.' It's not better to give than to receive, in my opinion, it's just less embarrassing. — Terry Pratchett

When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny. — Ernest Cline

It was Sci-Fi and fantasy that got me reading, and Sci-Fi writers in particular have pack rat minds. They introduce all sorts of interesting themes and ideas into their books, and so for me it was a short leap to go from the fantasy and Sci-Fi genres to folklore, mythology, ancient history and philosophy. I did not read philosophy because I set out to become a philosopher; I read it because it looked interesting. — Terry Pratchett

He enjoyed reading and writing. He liked words. Words didn't shout or make loud noises, which pretty much defined the rest of his family. They didn't involve getting muddy in the freezing cold. They didn't hunt inoffensive animals, either. They did what he told them to. So, he'd said, he wanted to write. — Terry Pratchett

People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered to be able to answer, such as "Is this the laundry?" "How do you spell surreptitious?" and, on a regular basis, "Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins. — 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

I'm not a natural killer! See this? See what it says? I'm supposed to keep the peace, I am! If I kill people to do it, I'm reading the wrong manual! — Terry Pratchett

Lord Vetinari in a meeting: what people said was what they wanted him to hear. He paid a lot of attention to the spaces outside the words, though. That's where the things were that they hoped he didn't know and didn't want him to find out. — Terry Pratchett

Escapism isn't good or bad of itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to. I write from experience, since in my case I escaped to the idea that books could be really enjoyable, an aspect of reading that teachers had not hitherto suggested. — 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

No other library anywhere, for example, has a whole gallery of unwritten books - books that would have been written if the author hadn't been eaten by an alligator around chapter 1, and so on. Atlases of imaginary places. Dictionaries of illusory words. Spotter's guides to invisible things. Wild thesauri in the Lost Reading Room. A library so big that it distorts reality and has opened gateways to all other libraries, everywhere and everywhen ... — Terry Pratchett

That was great, al' that reading' ye did!' said Rob Anybody. 'I didnae understand a single word o' it!' 'Aye, it must be powerful language if you cannae make oout what the heel it's goin' on aboot!' said another pictsie. — Terry Pratchett

I read anything that's going to be interesting. But you don't know what it is until you've read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there'll be the making of a novel. — Terry Pratchett

The Librarian considered matters for a while. So ... a dwarf and a troll. He preferred both species to humans. For one thing, neither of them were great readers. 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. — Terry Pratchett

My son and I discovered Terry Pratchett's books together, when he was about eleven years old. He'd be reading on his own and would start to laugh, and then eagerly read the passage aloud to me
and I'd do the same to him! Pratchett's books became a shared source of delight for us back then, and they still are today. — Linda Sue Park

She found it quite easy to interpret builders' estimates and do VAT calculations. She'd got some books from the library, and found finance to be both interesting and uncomplicated. She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talks about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that talks about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itself she dismissed them as only romance and knitting in a new form. So she'd started reading the kind of magazine that talked about mergers. — Terry Pratchett

She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itsel — Terry Pratchett

Rob turned the rustling pages and grinned.
'Ach, she's writ here: "Oh, the dear Feegles ha' turned up again,"' he said. This met with general applause.
'Ach, what a kind girl she is tae write that,' said Billy Bigchin. 'Can I see?'
He read: "Oh dear, the Feegles have turned up again."
'Ah,' he said. — Terry Pratchett

And he read Principles of Accounting all morning, but just to make it interesting, he put lots of dragons in it. — 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

Millions of flying saucers landin' all the time and the government keeps hushing it up.' 'Why?' said Wensleydale. Adam hesitated. His reading hadn't provided a quick explanation for this; New Aquarian just took it as the foundation of belief, both of itself and its readers, that the government hushed everything up. 'Cos they're the government,' said Adam simply. 'That's what governments do. They've got this great big building in London full of books of all the things they've hushed up. When the Prime Minister gets into work in the morning, the first thing he does is go through the big list of everything that's happened in the night and put this big red stamp on them.' 'I bet he has a cup of tea first, and then reads the paper,' said Wensleydale, — Terry Pratchett

she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy. — Terry Pratchett

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake. — Terry Pratchett

My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books. — Terry Pratchett

That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next. — Terry Pratchett

I discovered fantasy and science fiction when I was about 10, and read nothing else for about three years. I ran out of all the books that there were to read in the library. I was keen on reading stuff that took me to other places. — Terry Pratchett

( ... ) perfectly ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did the more dangerous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the reader's brain. — Terry Pratchett

But too much reading had taken its toll. William found that he now thought of prayer as a sophisticated way of pleading with thunderstorms. — Terry Pratchett

We try to make guests feel welcome," said Dee, scuttling behind his desk. He pulled off his pointed hat and, to Vimes's amazement, put on a pair of thick smoked glasses.
"You had papers?" he said. Vimes handed them over.
"It says here "His Grace"," the dwarf said, after reading them for awhile.
"Yes, that's me."
"And there's a sir."
"That's me, too."
"And an excellency."
"'fraid so." Vimes narrowed his eyes. "I was blackboard monitor for awhile, too. — Terry Pratchett

Well, the traveling teachers do come through every few months," said the Baron.
"Yes, sir, I know, sir, and they're useless, sir. They teach facts, not understanding. It's like teaching people about forests by showing them a saw. I want a proper school, sir, to teach reading and writing, and most of all thinking, sir, so people can find what they're 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's too late. — Terry Pratchett

How many books are there?" said Masklin.
"Hundreds! Thousands!"
"Do you know what they're all about?"
Gurder looked at him blankly. "Do you know what you're saying?" he said.
"No. But I want to find out."
"They're about everything! You'd never believe it! They're full of words even I don't understand!"
"Can you find a book which tells you how to understand words you don't understand?" said Masklin.
Gurder hesitated. "It's an intriguing thought," he said. — Terry Pratchett

He wanted to say: how could you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you could do with the peasents was to leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting for those who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open. — Terry Pratchett

He had to admit that this boy looked like good wizard material. In other words, he was thin, gangling, pale from reading disturbing books in unhealthy rooms, and had watery eyes like two lightly poached eggs ... Wizards are martyrs to things like asthma and flat feet; it somehow seems to give them their drive. — Terry Pratchett

For the first time in her life Granny wondered whether there might be something important in all these books people were setting store by these days, although she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy. Among the many things in the infinitely varied universe with which Granny did not hold was talking to dead people, who by all accounts had enough troubles of their own. — Terry Pratchett

And I went on reading; and, since if you read enough books you overflow, I eventually became a writer. — Terry Pratchett

I'm referred to, I see, as 'the biggest banker in modern publishing'. Now there's a line that needed the celebrated Guardian proof-reading. — Terry Pratchett

If you are going to write, say, fantasy - stop reading fantasy. You've already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you're going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit. — Terry Pratchett

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. — Terry Pratchett