WIST

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 (b. 1948) English writer
Diggers (1990)

“Perhaps this isn’t just a test of the world,” said Crowley. “It might be a test of you people, too. Hmm?”
“God does not play games with His loyal servants,” said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice.
“Whooo-eee,” said Crowley. “Where have you been?”

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

“From what I remember,” replied Crowley, thoughtfully, “– and we were never actually on what you might call speaking terms — He wasn’t exactly one for a straight answer. In fact, in fact, he’d never answer at all. He’d just smile, as if He knew something that you didn’t.”
“And of course that’s true,” said the angel. “Otherwise, what’d be the point?”

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

In the end, as every human being who has ever breakfasted on their own in someone else’s kitchen has done since nearly the dawn of time, he made do with unsweetened instant black coffee.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

“I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it’s all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you’ve built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can’t be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire. And don’t bother to answer. If we could understand, we wouldn’t be us. Because it’s all — all –”
INEFFABLE, said the figure feeding the ducks.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

… God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. 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 version 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.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

Armageddon only happens once, you know. They don’t let you go around again until you get it right.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

Hastur was paranoid, which was simply a sensible and well-adjusted reaction to living in Hell, where they really were all out to get you.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

If you take the long view, the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them. (Although, unless the ineffable plan is a lot more ineffable than it’s given credit for, it does not have a giant plastic snowman at the bottom.)

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. (This is not actually true. The road to Hell is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen. On weekends many of the younger demons go ice-skating down it.)

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

“But the Great Plan can only be a tiny part of the overall ineffability,” said Crowley. “You can’t be certain that what’s happening right now isn’t exactly right, from an ineffable point of view.”
“It izz written!” bellowed Beelzebub.
“But it might be written differently somewhere else,” said Crowley. “Where you can’t read it.”
“In bigger letters,” said Aziraphale.
“Underlined,” Crowley added.
“Twice,” suggested Aziraphale.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Good Omens (1990)
(with Neil Gaiman)

It was a five hundred mile journey and, surprisingly, quite uneventful. People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, “Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Guards! Guards! (1989)

Never build a dungeon you wouldn’t be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Guards! Guards! [Vetinari] (1989)

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Jingo (1999)

People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to a sticky end. All over the entire room, sometimes.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Moving Pictures (1990)

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.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Moving Pictures (1990)

His movements could be called cat-like, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Night Watch (2002)

“Huh! Priests!” said Mr. Shoe. “They’re all the same. Always telling you that you’re going to live again after you’re dead, but you just try it and see the look on their faces!”

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Reaper Man (1991)

“You’re not one of us.”

“I don’t think I’m one of them, either,” said Brutha. “I’m one of mine.”

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Small Gods (1992)

But still, one of the most basic rules for survival on any planet is never to upset someone wearing black leather.*
*This is why protesters against the wearing of animal skins by humans unaccountably fail to throw their paint over Hell’s Angels.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
The Last Continent (1998)

A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal sized billiard balls.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
The Light Fantastic (1986)

Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things … well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds … Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
The Truth (2000) [Lord Vetinari]

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Thief of Time (2001)

Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. 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.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Thief of Time (2001)

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 (b. 1948) English writer
Interview

Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Post, alt.fan.pratchett

Too many people want to have written.

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Post, alt.fan.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 (b. 1948) English writer
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (30 May 1998)
Full post.

The way of the portable computer user is as a stony path strewn with plugs and sockets, all the wrong size

Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English writer
Usenet Post, alt.fan.pratchett