Terry Pratchett Quotes

756 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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
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
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
Some people believe that when you die, you cross the River of Death and have to pay the ferryman. People don't seem to worry about that these days. Perhaps there's a bridge now.

Terry Pratchett
-Oh yes? Can you identify yourself? -Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.

Terry Pratchett
It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.

Terry Pratchett
There are no medium-sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there's light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space... then there's a race - between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up. Sometimes, you can make your own space.

Terry Pratchett
They looked at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving opposite ways up a narrow street and waiting for the other man to reverse first.

Terry Pratchett
The way to deal with an impossible task was to chop it down into a number of merely very difficult tasks, and break each one of them into a group of horribly hard tasks, and each of them into tricky jobs, and each of them...

Terry Pratchett
It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country," he read. "This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.

Terry Pratchett
Yes, sir, thank you, sir, and I wouldn't trust me one little inch, sir. I knows a bad one when I sees them. I have a mirror.

Terry Pratchett
After all, when you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.

Terry Pratchett
What's a philosopher?' said Brutha. Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,' said a voice in his head.

Terry Pratchett