Famous Terry Pratchett Quotations

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"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 hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but"
by Terry Pratchett
"Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off."
by Terry Pratchett
"'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.'"
by Terry Pratchett
"'I meant,' said Ipslore bitterly, 'what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?' Death thought about it 'Cats,' he said eventually, 'Cats are Nice.'"
by Terry Pratchett Sourcery
"[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners."
by Terry Pratchett
"A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read."
by Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
"A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores."
by Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
"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."
by Terry Pratchett
"For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks."
by Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
"He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at."
by Terry Pratchett
"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it"
by Terry Pratchett
"If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter."
by Terry Pratchett
"It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence could be safely ignored."
by Terry Pratchett
"No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for."
by Terry Pratchett
"Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street- cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact."
by Terry Pratchett
"One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual."
by Terry Pratchett
"Personal isn't the same as important."
by Terry Pratchett
"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time."
by Terry Pratchett
"Science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good"
by Terry Pratchett
"Sham Harga had run a succesful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease and burnt crunchy bits."
by Terry Pratchett
"Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove."
by Terry Pratchett
"Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate..."
by Terry Pratchett
"The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking."
by Terry Pratchett
"The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo."
by Terry Pratchett
"The price of being the best is having to be the best."
by Terry Pratchett
"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."
by Terry Pratchett
"The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head."
by Terry Pratchett
"Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant idiot."
by Terry Pratchett
"Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant 'idiot'."
by Terry Pratchett
"What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: 'Why is it so dark in here?'"
by Terry Pratchett
"When the least they could do to you was everything, then the most they could do to you suddenly held no terror."
by Terry Pratchett
"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half-full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half-empty. The world belongs , however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me ? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!"
by 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."
by Terry Pratchett
"Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos were lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a mountain in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'."
by The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett
"Rincewind had been generally reckoned by his tutors to be a natural wizard in the same way that fish are natural mountaineers."
by Terry Pratchett The Light Fantastic
"I know about people who talk about suffering for the common good. It's never bloody them! When you hear a man shouting 'Forward, brave comrades!' you'll see he's the one behind the bloody big rock and the wearing the only really arrow-proof helmet!"
by Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times
"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."
by Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad
"Words are the litmus paper of the minds. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word 'commence' in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say 'Enter', don't stop to pack."
by Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
"The evil are guilty, and create Law. The good are innocent, and create Justice."
by Terry Pratchett
"The bees of Death are big and black, they buzz low and sombre, they keep their honey in combs of wax as white as altar candles. The honey is black as night, thick as sin and sweet as treacle. It is well known that eight clours make up white. But there are also eight colors of blackness, for those that have the seeing of them, and the hives of Death are among the black grass in the black orchard under the black-blossomed, ancient boughs of trees that will, eventually, produce apples that ... put it like this ... probably won't be red."
by Terry Pratchett - (Faust) Eric
"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."
by Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
"All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into 'Best of Queen' albums."
by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"Million to one chances happen nine times out of ten."
by Terry Pratchett
"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 ."
by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking towards Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty To Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping but secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People travelled with them."
by The eight Bikers of the Apocalypse Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"Crowley had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: 'Learn, guys.'"
by Crowley, Demon Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole."
by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for exhibit A."
by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking."
by Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
"The chieftain had been turned into a pumpkin although, in accordance with the rules of universal humour, he still had his hat on."
by Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
"You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?' 'REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX."
by Death in conversation with a biker Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens
"Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthsiastic amateur who'd never looked at a real sunset. This was one of those sunrises. It was the kind of sunrise a man looks at and says, 'No real sunrise could paint the sky Surgical Appliance Pink.' Nevertheless, it was beautiful."
by Terry Pratchett


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