When the least they could do to you was everything, then the most they could do to you suddenly held no terror. - Terry Pratchett
Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more. - Terry Pratchett
What I say is, if a witch can't look after herself, she's got no business calling herself a witch. - Terry Pratchett
Death: "THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT."Albert: "Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them. - Terry Pratchett
What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?" - Terry Pratchett
This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic. - Terry Pratchett
It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum. - Terry Pratchett
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. - 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." - Terry Pratchett
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... - Terry Pratchett
Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off. - Terry Pratchett
It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence could be safely ignored. - 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. - Terry Pratchett
The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head. - Terry Pratchett
Drought-struck farmers pray for rain, in the express hope that the universe or owner thereof will hear the words and suspense the laws of meteorology for their benefit. Some, of course, actually believe just that, and for all anyone can prove they could be right. - Terry Pratchett
And now the birds were singing overhead, and there was a soft rustling in the undergrowth, and all the sounds of the forest that showed that life was still being lived blended with the souls of the dead in a woodland requiem. The whole forest now sang for Granny Weatherwax. - Terry Pratchett
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. - Terry Pratchett
And that's what I don't like about magic, Captain. 'cos it's *magic*. You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic! That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic! - Terry Pratchett
Quite amazing, isn’t it, Mister Lipwig?’ he said cheerfully through the smoke. ‘Though isn’t it a pity that they can only run on rails? I can’t imagine what the world would be like if everyone had their own steam locomotive. Abominable. - Terry Pratchett
All he had was nothing, but that was something, and now it had been taken away. - Terry Pratchett
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time. - Terry Pratchett
The trouble is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so. - Terry Pratchett
The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. - Terry Pratchett
Everybody has somebody. It could be a friend, a lover, a spouse, a writing partner, or even That One Person You See At The Coffee Shop each day. Sometimes they exist to comfort you. Sometimes they exist to drive you absolutely mad. Be open to either as a form of self-improvement. - 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. - Terry Pratchett
Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate... - Terry Pratchett
Revolutions always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. - Terry Pratchett
Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant "idiot". - Terry Pratchett
Lord Vetinari in a meeting: what people said was what they wanted him to hear. He paid a lot of attention to the spaces outside the words, though. That’s where the things were that they hoped he didn’t know and didn’t want him to find out. - Terry Pratchett
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it. - Terry Pratchett
Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom. - Terry Pratchett
What is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? - Terry Pratchett
Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it were something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you. - Terry Pratchett
THERE IS NO JUSTICE" said Death "JUST ME - Terry Pratchett
The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo. - Terry Pratchett
Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett
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. - Terry Pratchett
I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides. - Terry Pratchett
Humans need fantasy to be human. - Terry Pratchett
I just rearrange words into a pleasing order for money. - Terry Pratchett
Things just happen, one after another. They don't care who knows. But history... ah, history is different. History has to be observed. Otherwise it's not history. It's just... well, things happening one after another. - Terry Pratchett
First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft. - Terry Pratchett
Its like people care more abput their pride than about what's correct, about the truth. - Terry Pratchett
[Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it! - Terry Pratchett
It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing. - Terry Pratchett
It's rude to stare," said the troll. Its mouth opened with a little crest of foam, and shut again in exactly the same way that water closes over a stone. "Is it? Why?" asked Rincewind. How does he hold himself together, his mind screamed at him. Why doesn't he spill? - Terry Pratchett
Anyone with half a mind could see that," said Tiffany.Miss Tick sighed. "Yes. But sometimes it's so hard to find half a mind when you need one. - Terry Pratchett
I really should talk to him. He's had a near-death experience!"We all have. It's called living."(Hogfather) - Terry Pratchett
If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship. - Terry Pratchett
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. - 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. - Terry Pratchett
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. - Terry Pratchett
Amazin'.' he said again. 'He just looks as though he's thinking, right?''Er...yes.''But he's not actually thinking?''Er...no.''So...he just gives the impression of thinking but really it's just a show?''Er...yes.'Just like everyone else, then really,' said Ridcully - Terry Pratchett
Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon... - Terry Pratchett
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it. - Terry Pratchett
Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove. - Terry Pratchett
If women were as good as men they'd be a lot better! - Terry Pratchett
I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel. - Terry Pratchett
Only elves and trolls had survived the coming of Man to the discworld: the elves because they were altogether too clever by half, and the trolley folk because they were at least as good as humans at being nasty, spiteful and greedy. - Terry Pratchett
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life. - Terry Pratchett
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. - Terry Pratchett
And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So who is "me"? - Terry Pratchett
Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when you shout, 'Where's my clean socks?' no-one answers. - Terry Pratchett
I aintent dead - Terry Pratchett
Ye mustn't be afraid to ask for help. Pride is a good thing, my girl, but it will kill you in time. - Terry Pratchett
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. - Terry Pratchett
Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that makes us human. - Terry Pratchett
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. - Terry Pratchett
Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time. - Terry Pratchett
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded. - Terry Pratchett
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual. - Terry Pratchett
You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right? - Terry Pratchett
Probably went swimming and got eaten by a pineapple. - Terry Pratchett
You could bounce rocks off her pride. - Terry Pratchett
Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards. - Terry Pratchett
Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself. - Terry Pratchett
No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for. - Terry Pratchett
Famous I don't know about. It's hard to be famous and alive. I just want to play music every day and hear someone say, 'Thanks, that was great, here's some money, same time tomorrow, okay?' - Terry Pratchett
...Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was... - Terry Pratchett
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. - Terry Pratchett
Daphne’s thought in Nation: This was no time to go totally mad. You had to maintain standards. - Terry Pratchett
We're living in science fiction, but we don't realize it. - Terry Pratchett
It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done. - 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. - Terry Pratchett
[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners. - Terry Pratchett
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one. - Terry Pratchett
The sun set, which is everyday magic... - Terry Pratchett
...Human beings, little bags of thinking water held up briefly by fragile accumulations of calcium... - Terry Pratchett
When people talk about their great past they're usually trying to excuse the mediocre present. - Terry Pratchett
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT /MEANT/ TO BE SAFE. - Terry Pratchett
If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you. - Terry Pratchett
Lots of people in history have only done their jobs and look at the trouble they caused - Terry Pratchett
It took place in the midnight in the University's Great Hall, in a welter of incense, candlesticks, runic inscriptions and magic circles, none of which was strictly necessary but which made the wizards feel better. - Terry Pratchett
And just when you’d think [humans] were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they occasionally showed more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. - Terry Pratchett
To him, the pain was a bully, and what did you do to bullies? You stood up to them, because they always ran away in the end. But the pain didn't know about that rule. It just bullied even more. - Terry Pratchett
Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think. - Terry Pratchett
Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be. - Terry Pratchett
Жизненно важный ингредиент успеха - это не знать, что задуманное вами невозможно выполнить. - Terry Pratchett
The wizards were civilized men of considerable education and culture. When faced with being inadvertently marooned on a desert island they understood immediately that the first thing to do was place the blame - Terry Pratchett
The Deftmenes are mad and the Dumii are sane, thought Snibril, and that's just the same as being mad except that it's quieter. - Terry Pratchett
He wasn't sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was "cultural," apparently, and you couldn't object to that, so he didn't. "Cultural" sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren't really there. - Terry Pratchett
A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?I make no suggestion that one side or other is right, but observation over many years leads me to believe it is true. - Terry Pratchett
He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at. - Terry Pratchett
Too much alleged ‘fantasy’ is just empty sugar, life with the crusts cut off. - 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. - Terry Pratchett
That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans. A European says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?" An American says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?" - Terry Pratchett
It's hard enough bein' people as it is, without other people coming and messin' you around. - Terry Pratchett
If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter. - Terry Pratchett
I'd rather be a rising ape than a falling angel. - Terry Pratchett
He was stupid, yes, in the particular way that very clever people can be stupid. - Terry Pratchett
It's political, sir. Apparently he wants a return to the values and traditions that made the city great, sir." "Does he _know_ what those values and traditions _were_?" said Vimes, aghast. - Terry Pratchett
It's like people care more about their pride than about what's correct, about the truth. - Terry Pratchett
Just for a moment there was an unusual feeling of bliss. Strange word, he thought. It's one of those words that describe something that does not make a noise but, if it did make a noise, would sound just like that. Bliss. It's like the sound of a soft meringue melting gently on a warm plate. - Terry Pratchett
Making money is good, but there's no pockets in a shroud. - Terry Pratchett