Terry Pratchett Quotes

756 Sourced Quotes

I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, said Death, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.

Terry Pratchett
But ye gotta know where ye're just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in anywhere. It looks bad, havin' to rush oout again straight awa'.

Terry Pratchett
Who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men? A copper, that's who. (...)You saw how close men lived to the beast. You realized that people like Carcer were not mad. They were incredibily sane. They were simply men without a shield. They'd looked at the world and realized that all the rules didn't have to apply to them, not if they didn't want them to. They weren't fooled by all the little stories. They shook hands with the beast.

Terry Pratchett
Most modern fantasy just rearranges the furniture in Tolkien's attic.

Terry Pratchett
Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole.

Terry Pratchett
Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad.

Terry Pratchett
Lord Vetinari lifted an eyebrow with the care of one who, having found a piece of caterpillar in his salad, raises the rest of the lettuce.

Terry Pratchett
'I thought you didn't like books,' said Agnes. 'I don't,' said Granny, turning a page. 'They can look you right in the face and still lie.'

Terry Pratchett
He'd been an angel once. He hadn't meant to Fall. He'd just hung around with the wrong people.

Terry Pratchett
Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where's your coffee? You've got coffee, haven't you? C'mon, everyone's got coffee! Spill the beans!

Terry Pratchett
Oh dear, I'm feeling political today. It's just that it's dawned on me that 'zero tolerance' only seems to mean putting extra police in poor, run-down areas, and not in the Stock Exchange.

Terry Pratchett
It was octarine, the colour of magic. It was alive and glowing and vibrant and it was the undisputed pigment of the imagination, because wherever it appeared it was a sign that mere matter was a servant of the powers of the magical mind. It was enchantment itself. But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of greenish-purple.

Terry Pratchett
Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.

Terry Pratchett
His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few.

Terry Pratchett
A horse's skull always looks scary, even if someone has put lipstick on it.

Terry Pratchett
What is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons?

Terry Pratchett
I asked a teacher what the opposite of a miracle was and she, without thinking, I assume, said it was an act of God.
You shouldn't say something like that to the kind of kid who will grow up to be a writer; we have long memories.

Terry Pratchett
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

Terry Pratchett
I hate cats." Death's face became a little stiffer, if that were possible. The blue glow in his eye sockets flickered red for an instant. "I SEE," he said. The tone suggested that death was too good for cat haters.

Terry Pratchett
She was a beefy young woman and, whatever piece of music she was playing, it was definitely losing.

Terry Pratchett
Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.

Terry Pratchett
All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.

Terry Pratchett
I've seen excitement, and I've seen boredom. And boredom was best.

Terry Pratchett
The librarians were mysterious. It was said they could tell what book you needed just by looking at you, and they could take your voice away with a word.

Terry Pratchett
Oh, my dear Vimes, history changes all the time. It is constantly being re-examined and re-evaluated, otherwise how would we be able to keep historians occupied? We can't possibly allow people with their sort of minds to walk around with time on their hands.

Terry Pratchett
ASTONISHING, said Death. REALLY ASTONISHING. LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS.

Terry Pratchett
He was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were.

Terry Pratchett
Find the story, Granny Weatherwax always said. She believed that the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you. But if you studied them, if you found out about them... you could use them, you could change them.

Terry Pratchett
In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

Terry Pratchett
Other people salted away money for their old age, but Nanny preferred to accumulate memories.

Terry Pratchett