Terry Pratchett - Day Quotes

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Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn't take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

Terry Pratchett
The universe clearly operates for the benefit of humanity. This can be readily seen from the convenient way the sun comes up in the morning, when people are ready to start the day.

Terry Pratchett
There's no point in killing an opponent... There's no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.

Terry Pratchett
The days followed one another patiently. Right back at the beginning of the multiverse they had tried all passing at the same time, and it hadn't worked.

Terry Pratchett
See a pin and pick it up, and, all day long, you'll have a pin.

Terry Pratchett
Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like 'his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,' and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.

Terry Pratchett
I'm up to my neck in the real world, every day. Just you try doing your VAT return with a head full of goblins.

Terry Pratchett
Alzheimer's is me, unwinding, losing trust in myself, a butt of my own jokes and on bad days capable of playing hunt the slipper by myself and losing. You can't battle it, you can't be a plucky survivor. It steals you from yourself.

Terry Pratchett
One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble.

Terry Pratchett
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.

Terry Pratchett
A witch who is bored might do ANYTHING. People said things like 'we had to make our own amusements in those days' as if this signified some kind of moral worth, and perhaps it did, but the last thing you wanted a witch to do was get bored and start making her own amusements, because witches sometimes had famously erratic ideas about what was amusing.

Terry Pratchett
On the fifth day the Governor of the town called all the tribal chieftains to an audience in the market square, to hear their grievances. He didn't always do anything about them, but at least they got heard, and he nodded a lot, and everyone felt better about it at least until they got home. This is politics.

Terry Pratchett
They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings.
It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on.

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, well...up until now it had been a good day, in a horrible kind of way.

Terry Pratchett
You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap.

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
There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.
But it is true that in an interview I gave recently I did describe a sudden, distinct feeling I had one hectic day that everything I was doing was right and things were happening as they should.
It seemed like the memory of a voice and it came wrapped in its own brief little bubble of tranquillity. I'm not used to this.
As a fantasy writer I create fresh gods and philosophies almost with every new book … But since contracting Alzheimer's disease I have spent my long winter walks trying to work out what it is that I really, if anything, believe.

Terry Pratchett
You say that you people don't burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that's what true faith would mean, y'see? Sacrificin' your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin' the truth of it, workin' for it, breathin' the soul of it. That's religion. Anything else is just... is just bein' nice. And a way of keepin' in touch with the neighbors.

Terry Pratchett
He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.

Terry Pratchett
They were small, brightly coloured, happy little creatures who secreted some of the nastiest toxins in the world, which is why the job of looking after the large vivarium where they happily passed their days was given to first-year students, on the basis that if they got things wrong there wouldn't be too much education wasted.

Terry Pratchett
An Assassin, a real Assassin had to look like one-black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?

Terry Pratchett
Sometimes the crime follows the punishment, which only serves to prove the foresight of the Great God." "That's what my grandmother used to say," said Brutha automatically. "Indeed? I would like to know more about this formidable lady." "She used to give me a thrashing every morning because I would certainly do something to deserve it during the day," said Brutha. "A most complete understanding of the nature of mankind,

Terry Pratchett
Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you're going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he'll grow up to be a demon just because his dad became one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me.

Terry Pratchett
I saved a man's life once," said Granny. "Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of berry juice in it. Told him I'd bought it from the dwarves. That's the biggest part of doct'rin, really. Most people'll get over most things if they put their minds to it, you just have to give them an interest.

Terry Pratchett
And the people next door oppress me all night long. I tell them, I work all day, a man's got to have some time to learn to play the tuba. That's oppression, that is. If I'm not under the heel of the oppressor, I don't know who is.

Terry Pratchett
I dare say that quite a few people have contemplated death for reasons that much later seemed to them to be quite minor. If we are to live in a world where a socially acceptable "early death" can be allowed, it must be allowed as a result of careful consideration.
Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.

Terry Pratchett
- I notice you didn't laugh, Mr. Black! - No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.

Terry Pratchett
Carpe Jugulum," read Agnes aloud. "That's... well, Carpe Diem is 'Sieze the Day,' so this means-" "Go for the throat

Terry Pratchett
But of course, what the eagle does not realize is that it is participating in a very crude form of natural selection.One day a tortoise will learn how to fly.

Terry Pratchett