Terry Pratchett Quotes

756 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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
It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.

Terry Pratchett
Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.

Terry Pratchett
This was not a fairy-tale castle and there was no such thing as a fairy-tale ending, but sometimes you could threaten to kick the handsome prince in the ham-and-eggs.

Terry Pratchett
Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

Terry Pratchett
We're dealing here," said Vimes, "With a twisted mind." "Oh, no! You think so?" "Yes." "But... no... you can't be right. Because Nobby was with us all the time." "Not Nobby," said Vimes testily. "Whatever he might do to a dragon, I doubt if he'd make it explode. There's stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad." Carrot's expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror. "Gosh," he said.

Terry Pratchett
The disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailor who got funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for the antipodes soon learned that the reason why distant ships sometimes looked as though they were disappearing over the edge of the world was that they were disappearing over the edge of the world.

Terry Pratchett
Death was standing behind a lectern, poring over a map. He looked at Mort as if he wasn't entirely there.
"You haven't heard of the Bay of Mante, have you?" he said. "No, sir," said Mort.
"Famous Shipwreck there."
"Was there?"
"There will be," said Death, "if I can find the damn place."

Terry Pratchett
An ancient proverb summed it up when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life.

Terry Pratchett
This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.

Terry Pratchett
A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.

Terry Pratchett
Although she was aware that somewhere under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn't mean to say she approved of it.

Terry Pratchett
Always face what you fear. Have just enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two mirrors. Never cackle. Do what you must do. Never lie, but you don't always have to be honest. Never wish. Especially don't wish upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open your eyes, and then open your eyes again.

Terry Pratchett
My name is immaterial,' she said. That's a pretty name,' said Rincewind.

Terry Pratchett
But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever - provided, naturally, that you don't go and look. This is known as finance.

Terry Pratchett
I live in a city. I know sparrows from starlings. After that everything's a duck as far as I'm concerned.

Terry Pratchett
'You're not going to die, are you sir?' he said.
'Of course I am. Everyone is. That's what being alive is all about.'

Terry Pratchett
The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.

Terry Pratchett
Down there - he said - are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.

Terry Pratchett
I staggered into a Manchester bar late one night on a tour and the waitress said "You look as if you need a Screaming Orgasm". At the time this was the last thing on my mind...

Terry Pratchett
You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?

Terry Pratchett