Terry Pratchett Quotes

756 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
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
Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care.

Terry Pratchett
Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted advisor.

Terry Pratchett
It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer's and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer's.

Terry Pratchett
Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.

Terry Pratchett
Oh, come on. Revelation was a mushroom dream that belonged in the Apocrypha. The New Testament is basically about what happened when God got religion

Terry Pratchett
Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your own home.

Terry Pratchett
The truth is a fog, in which one man sees the heavenly host and the other one sees a flying elephant.

Terry Pratchett
You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.

Terry Pratchett
Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust "Mothers of Borogravia!" and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...

Terry Pratchett
Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them

Terry Pratchett
It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God's waiting room.

Terry Pratchett
Oh. I see. People don't want to see what can't possibly exist.

Terry Pratchett