Terry Pratchett Quotes

756 Sourced Quotes

IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather.
THEY'RE NOT
MEANT
TO BE SAFE.

Terry Pratchett
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.

Terry Pratchett
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Terry Pratchett
Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.

Terry Pratchett
Next comes the realist phase ("After all, from a purely geometrical point of view a cat is only a tube with a door at the top.").

Terry Pratchett
It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.

Terry Pratchett
Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear we might not be.

Terry Pratchett
Assassins did have a certain code, after all. It was dishonorable to kill someone if you weren't being paid.

Terry Pratchett
One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.

Terry Pratchett
I have to admit that I drive past Bridgwater quite regularly. And fast.

Terry Pratchett
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.

Terry Pratchett
Sergeant Colon of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard was on duty. He was guarding the Brass Bridge, the main link between Ankh and Morpork. From theft. When it came to crime prevention, Sergeant Colon found it safest to think big.

Terry Pratchett
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!

Terry Pratchett
OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death. OTHERWISE, WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?

Terry Pratchett
Nanny Ogg could see the future in the froth on a beer mug. It invariably showed that she was going to enjoy a refreshing drink which she almost certainly was not going to pay for.

Terry Pratchett
There should be a notice ahead of the movie that says 'This movie is PG. Can you read? You are a Parent. Do you understand what Guidance is? Or are you just another stupid toddler who thinks they're an adult simply because they've grown older and, unfortunately, have developed fully-functioning sexual organs? Would you like some committee somewhere to decide *everything* for you? Get a damn grip, will you? And shut the wretched kid up!'

Terry Pratchett
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.

Terry Pratchett
Do you think there's anything to eat in this forest? Yes, said the wizard bitterly, us.

Terry Pratchett
I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him.

Terry Pratchett
Don't you understand?" snarled Rincewind. "We are going over the Edge, godsdammit!" "Can't we do anything about it?" "No!" "Then I can't see the sense in panicking," said Twoflower calmly.

Terry Pratchett
I'd like to stand up for the rights of people who put everything on their burger — chutney, mustard, pickle, mustard pickle, tomato sauce... It is common knowledge in my family that I can't tell the difference between a veggie burger and a meat one, because the ratio of burger to pickles is so high.

Terry Pratchett
Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should.

Terry Pratchett
It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone's mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.

Terry Pratchett
All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that. [... ] Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.

Terry Pratchett
That was always the dream, wasn't it? 'I wish I'd known then what I know now'? But when you got older you found out that you NOW wasn't YOU then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.

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

Terry Pratchett
Life doesn't happen in chapters — at least, not regular ones. Nor do movies. Homer didn't write in chapters. I can see what their purpose is in children's books ("I'll read to the end of the chapter, and then you must go to sleep") but I'm blessed if I know what function they serve in books for adults.

Terry Pratchett
People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.

Terry Pratchett
Even a really bad creator would at least have started with Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Surprise.

Terry Pratchett
Currently there's five machines permanently networked here. They all contain the serious core stuff. A couple of the machines are pensioned off 486s, with little other value now. Plus there's two Jaz drives in the building and the portable also carries a fair amount of stuff. Plus every Friday a man comes around and carves all the new stuff onto stone slabs and buries them in the garden... I think I'm okay.

Terry Pratchett