Authors — Quotes

Terry Pratchett Quotes: 117

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Diggers
It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.
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.
Jingo
Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
Thief of Time
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.
The Last Continent
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.
If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.
Lords and Ladies
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
A Hat Full of Sky
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.
Small Gods
Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.
In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
Lords and Ladies
It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.
I meant,"said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"Death thought about it.CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.
Sourcery
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
Reaper Man
DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
Reaper Man
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
And what would humans be without love?"RARE, said Death.
Sourcery
No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"the man yelled. "Really?"said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?" "What?" "Oh, you'd like something simpler?
Night Watch
It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,"he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?
Mort
I'd rather be a rising ape than a falling angel.
The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.
Moving Pictures
If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!
The Color of Magic
He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.
Mort
Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
Hogfather
Death: "THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT."Albert: "Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.
We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still.
Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.
Monstrous Regiment
HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM. (Death)
Hogfather
This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.
We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.
Night Watch
This book was written using 100% recycled words.
Wyrd Sisters
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.
Guards! Guards!
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
Jingo
...inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
Moving Pictures
Do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane?
Monstrous Regiment
Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?
Going Postal
The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
Equal Rites
Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
Mort
In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of thecat, although in this case there were three determinate states the catcould be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
Lords and Ladies
The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.
Unseen Academicals
What have I always believed?That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.
Small Gods
Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen in a cutting way. She could make something sound stupid just by hearing it.
Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.
Thud!
Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.
Jingo
Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.
Reaper Man