Terry Pratchett Quotes - Page 8

Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

It was here that the thaum, hitherto believed to be the smallest possible particle of magic, was succesfully demonstrated to be made up of /resons/ (Lit.: 'Thing-ies') or reality fragments. Currently research indicates that each reson is itself made up of a combination of at least five 'flavours', known as 'up', 'down', 'sideways', 'sex appeal' and 'peppermint'.

The money… will talk?' said Mr Spools carefully.'Imps,' said Moist. 'They're only a sort of intelligent spell. They don't even have to have a shape. We'll print them on the higher denominations.

Once you were in the hands of a Grand Vizier, you were dead. Grand Viziers were always scheming megalomaniacs. It was probably in the job description: "Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted minister.

Fire is easy to work with if you keep your mind clear, but pain . . . pain fights back. Pain is alive. Pain is the enemy.

When Geoffrey was away, the goat often took himself off. He had soon got the goats at Granny’s cottage doing his bidding, and Nanny Ogg said once that she had seen what she called ‘that devil goat’ sitting in the middle of a circle of feral goats up in the hills. She named him ‘The Mince of Darkness’ because of his small and twinkling hooves, and added, ‘Not that I don’t like him, stinky as he is. I’ve always been one for the horns, as you might say. Goats is clever. Sheep ain’t. No offence, my dear.

Good so be would you if, duff plum of helping second A," said the Bursar. The table fell silent. "Did anyone understand that?" said Ridcully. The Bursar was not technically insane. He had passed through the rapids of insanity som time previously, and was now sculling around in some peaceful pool on the other side. He was quite often coherent, although not by normal human standards.

Do you know how wizards like to be buried?""Yes!""Well, how?"Granny Weatherwax paused at the bottom of the stairs."Reluctantly.

Cats, Dog considered, were clearly a lot tougher than lost souls.

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"NO"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN...."Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.

He said to people: you’re free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he’d been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who’ve seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door...

That's what you people never understand," said Rincewind, wearily. "You think magic is just something you can pick up and use like a, a -""Parsnip?" said Nijel."Wine Bottle?" said the Seriph."Something like that," said Rincewind cautiously, but rallied somewhat and went on, "But the truth is, is -""Not like that?""More like a wine bottle?" said the Seriph hopefully."Magic uses people," said Rincewind hurriedly. "It affects you as much as you affect it, sort of thing. You can't mess around with magical things without it affecting you. I just thought I'd better warn you.""Like a wine bottle," said Creosote, "that -""- drinks you back," said Rincewind.

Measurements is your saving grace if you want to raise steam.

The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

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.

There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.

… you were so worried about legal and illegal that you never stopped to think about whether it was right or wrong.

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.

She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their shoes, which did not make a whole lot of sense, because probably AFTER you had walked a mile in their shoes, you would understand that they were chasing you and accusing you of the theft of a pair of shoes--although, of course, you could probably outrun them, owing to their lack of footwear.

He shrugged. - They're just people - he said. - They're just doing what people do. Sir.Lord Vetinari gave him a friendly smile.- Of course, of course - he said. - You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you'd go quite mad. Otherwise you'd think you're standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.

And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So who is "me"?

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.

The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.

(...) perfectly ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous, just because reading them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did the more dangerous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the reader's brain.

I know nothing about her. Just some books, and some stories she tried to tell me, and things I didn't understand, and I remember big red soft hands and that smell. I never knew who she really was. I mean, she must have been nine too, once.

They want dancing girls! They want thrills! They want elephants! They want people falling off roofs! They want dreams! The world is full of little people with big dreams!

I know it’s not the right thing to say to a lady, miss, but you are sweating like a pig!""My mother always said that horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies merely glow…""Is that so? Well, miss, you are glowing like a pig!

The fastest way to travel is to be there already.

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

I believe the term is ‘eminent domain.’Ah, yes. That means ‘theft by the government,

He only drinks when he gets depressed,' said Carrot. 'Why does he get depressed?' 'Sometimes it's because he hasn't had a drink.

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!

Veil, you see, if I vas to say something portentous like "zer dark eyes of zer mind" back home in Uberwald, zer would be a sudden crash of thunder,' said Otto. 'And if I vas to point at a castle on a towering crag and say "Yonder is . . . zer castle" a volf would be bound to howl mournfully.' He sighed. 'In zer old country, zer scenery is psychotropic and knows vot is expected of it. Here, alas, people just look at you in a funny vay.

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

His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old.

Igor?' said Moist. 'You have an Igor?'Oh, yes,' said Hubert. 'That's how I get this wonderful light. They know the secret of storing lightning in jars! But don't let that worry you, Mr Lipspick. Just because I'm employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn't mean I'm some sort of madman, ha ha ha!'Ha ha,' agreed Moist.Ha hah hah!,' said Hubert. 'Hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-'Bent slapped him on the back. Hubert coughed.Sorry about that, it's the air down here,' he mumbled.

After all, if you can't trust governments, whom can you trust?

Might have just been an innocent bystander, sir,’ said Carrot‘What, in Ankh-Morpork?’‘Yes, sir.’‘We should have grabbed him, then, just for the rarity value

We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.

When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth.

Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.

DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.

She is standing just behind you. Just behind your right shoulder."In the silence of the woods, Polly turned."I can't see her," she said."I am happy for you," said Wazzer, handing her the empty mug."But I didn't see anything," said Polly."No," said Wazzer. "But you turned around...

As far as he could see, the drawings were simply alive. They might be colored earth on rock, but they were as alive as the kangaroo that'd just hopped away.

Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle.

Is that all, sir? Only we've got stuff to finish before our knocking-off time, you see, and if we stay late we have to make more money to pay our overtime, and if the lads is a bit tired we ends up earning the money faster'n we can make it, which leads to a bit of what I can only call a conundrum—""You mean that if you do overtime you have to do more overtime to pay for it?" said Moist, still pondering how illogical logical thinking can be if a big enough committee is doing it."That's right, sir," said Shady. "And down that road madness lies.""It's a very short road," said Moist, nodding.

If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.

The air smelled of a limited life expectancy.

We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.

Belief is one of the most powerful organic forces in the multiverse. It may not be able to move mountains, exactly. But it can create someone who can.People get exactly the wrong idea about belief. They think it works back to front. They think the sequence is, first object, then belief. In fact, it works the other way.

I have to ask, sir...Why does it have to be done like this?"Vetinari smiled. "Can you keep a secret, Mister Lipwig?""Oh, yes, sir. I've kept lots.""Capital. And the point is, so can I. You do not need to know.

The hated have no reason to love.

I staggered into a Manchester bar late one night on a tour and the waitress said "You look as if you need a Screaming Orgasm". At the time this was the last thing on my mind...

You couldn't say: It's not my fault. You couldn't say: It's not my responsibility.You could say: I will deal with this.You didn't have to want to. But you had to do it.

The elevator shaft was a kind of heat sink. Hot food was cold by the time it arrived. Cold food got colder. No one knew what would happen to ice cream, but it would probably involve some rewriting of the laws of thermodynamics.

It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.

Cats do not hunt seals. They would hunt them if they knew what seals and where to find them. But they do not know, so it's okay.

The dogged determination and patience of one person to do what is Right and Necessary may not always win the day or even be noticed, but it will tip the balance just a little in the direction of good.

Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.