WIST Quotations

Pratchett, Terry -- “I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)

Dave — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 18:34:12 +0000

There is a rumour going around that I have found god. I think is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
“I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- “I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)

Dave — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 14:38:16 +0000

I don’t have much truck with the “religion is the cause of most of our wars” school of thought because that is manifestly done by mad, manipulative and power-hungry men who cloak their ambition in God.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
“I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- “I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)

Dave — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 13:49:57 +0000

It’s that moment, that brief epiphany when the universe opens up and shows us something, and in that instant we get just a sense of an order greater than Heaven and, as yet at least, beyond the grasp of Stephen Hawking. It doesn’t require worship, but, I think, rewards intelligence, observation and enquiring minds. I don’t think I’ve found God, but I may have seen where gods come from.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
“I create gods all the time — now I think one might exist,” Daily Mail (21 Jun 2008)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- (Attributed)

Dave — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 16:22:36 +0000

If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago “Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world’s music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, travelling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don’t have to die of dental abcesses and you don’t have to do what the squire tells you” they’d think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say ‘yes’.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
(Attributed)

Usually cited to alt.fan.pratchett, but not found in the repository.

Pratchett, Terry -- (Attributed)

Dave — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 22:03:03 +0000

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words — that’s how long a novel is.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
(Attributed)

Source unknown.

Pratchett, Terry -- (Frequent Phrase)

Dave — Fri, 12 May 2023 22:02:43 +0000

I’d rather be a rising ape than a falling angel.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
(Frequent Phrase)

Pratchett used this phrase and variations on it on numerous occasions. Here are a few:

Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
-- Hogfather (1996)

Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel.
-- "I create gods all the time," Daily Mail (2008-06-21)

"I'd much rather be a rising ape than a fallen angel"
-- Guardian Book Club Q&A video, 7:19 Guardian (2009-12-19)

See also F. H. Knelman's essay, "Probing Man's True Nature" in 1984 And All That, Sec. 3 (1971):

In the last few years science has been racked by vexing questions concerning the nature of man. The fallen angel has departed and the rising ape appeared.

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, “Caveat” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, “Caveat” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, “Dramatis Personae” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 18:52:35 +0000

Crowley (An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards)

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, “Dramatis Personae” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 1. “In the Beginning” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 20:20:54 +0000

“You’ve got to admit it’s a bit of a pantomime, though,” said Crawly. “I mean, pointing out the Tree and saying ‘Don’t Touch’ in big letters. Not very subtle, is it? I mean, why not put it on top of a high mountain or a long way off? Makes you wonder what He’s really planning.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 1. “In the Beginning” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Referring to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:16-17).

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:40:15 +0000

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 15:40:43 +0000

Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn’t have any alternative. But he hoped it was a long way off.
Because he rather liked people.
It was major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do to themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination. And electricity, of course.
One of them had written it, hadn’t he … “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

The quote is from Shakespeare, The Tempest.

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:42:44 +0000

Most of the members of the convent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They’d been brought up to it and weren’t, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren’t. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:04:31 +0000

He’d been an angel once. He hadn’t meant to Fall. He’d just hung around with the wrong people.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:36:26 +0000

Crowley thumped the wheel. Everything had been going so well, he’d had it really under his thumb these few centuries. That’s how it goes, you think you’re on top of the world, and suddenly they spring Armageddon on you.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 19:38:30 +0000

People couldn’t become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:52:28 +0000

Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 13:04:27 +0000

She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 18:23:06 +0000

She’d stopped reading the kind of women’s magazine that talks about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women’s magazine that talks about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itself she dismissed them as only romance and knitting in a new form.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” [Crowley] (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 3. “Wednesday” [Crowley] (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 08 May 2014 14:47:42 +0000

He didn’t say “That’s weird.” He wouldn’t have said “That’s weird” if a flock of sheep had cycled past playing violins. It wasn’t the sort of thing a responsible engineer said.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 15 May 2014 12:14:27 +0000

Three very crowded hours went past. They involved quite a lot of phone calls, telexes, and faxes. Twenty-seven people were got out of bed in quick succession and they got another fifty-three out of bed, because if there is one thing a man wants to know when he’s woken up in a panic at 4:00 A.M., it’s that he’s not alone.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:47:27 +0000

They had once — at Adam’s instigation — tried a health food diet for a while one afternoon. Their verdict was that you could live very well on healthy food provided you had a big cooked lunch beforehand.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 4. “Thursday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

“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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

“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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

And 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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

“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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 22 May 2014 12:06:36 +0000

So computers are tools of the Devil? thought Newt. He had no problem believing it. Computers had to be the tools of somebody, and all he knew for certain was that it definitely wasn’t him.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 29 May 2014 13:02:25 +0000

Now, as Crowley would be the first to protest, most demons weren’t deep down evil. In the great cosmic game they felt they occupied the same position as tax inspectors — doing an unpopular job, maybe, but essential to the overall operation of the whole thing. If it came to that, some angels weren’t paragons of virtue; Crowley had met one or two who, when it came to righteously smiting the ungodly, smote a good deal harder than was strictly necessary. On the whole, everyone had a job to do, and just did it. And on the other hand, you got people like Ligur and Hastur, who took such a dark delight in unpleasantness you might even have mistaken them for human.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 21:05:52 +0000

NOTE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND AMERICANS: One shilling = Five Pee. It helps to understand the antique finances of the Witchfinder Army if you know the original British monetary system:
Two Farthings = One Ha’penny. Two Ha’pennies = One Penny. Three Pennies = A Thrupenny Bit. Two Thrupences = A Sixpence. Two Sixpences = One Shilling, or Bob. Two Bob = A Florin. One Florin and One Sixpence = Half a Crown. Four Half Crowns = Ten Bob Note. Two Ten Bob Notes = One Pound (or 240 pennies). One Pound and One Shilling = One Guinea.
The British resisted decimalized currency for a long time because they thought it was too complicated.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” [Adam] (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 18:06:59 +0000

Anyway, if you stop tellin’ people it’s all sorted out after they’re dead, they might try sorting it all out while they’re alive.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 6. “Saturday” [Adam] (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 7. “Sunday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 7. “Sunday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 7. “Sunday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

“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 (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 7. “Sunday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Crowley speculating to Aziraphale about God's motivations in creating a flawed Universe.

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, Foreword (2006 ed.) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 22:02:54 +0000

Etiquette tip: It’s okay, more or less, to ask an author to sign your arm, but not good manners to then nip around to the tattoo parlor next door and return half an hour later to show them the inflamed result.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, Foreword (2006 ed.) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Lords and Ladies [Granny Weatherwax] (1992)

Dave — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 17:06:04 +0000

Glamour. Elves are beautiful. They’ve got style. Beauty. Grace. That’s what matters. If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That’s what people remember.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Lords and Ladies [Granny Weatherwax] (1992)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Nation, ch. 4 “Bargains, Covenants and Promises” (2009)

Dave — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 17:27:55 +0000

Sometimes you laugh because you’ve got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you’re alive, when you really shouldn’t be.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Nation, ch. 4 “Bargains, Covenants and Promises” (2009)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Bromeliad No. 2, Diggers, ch. 3 (1990)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Bromeliad No. 2, Diggers, ch. 3 (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Bromeliad No. 2, Diggers, ch. 4 (1990)

Dave — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 18:47:35 +0000

And the funny thing was that people who weren’t entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Bromeliad No. 2, Diggers, ch. 4 (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld Mapps No. 4, Death’s Domain (1999) [with Paul Kidby]

Dave — Tue, 05 Jan 2021 16:36:22 +0000

There are better things in the world than alcohol, Albert.
“Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld Mapps No. 4, Death’s Domain (1999) [with Paul Kidby]
(Source)

Death speaking with his manservant, Albert.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 1, The Colour of Magic (1993)

Dave — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 19:50:44 +0000

Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 1, The Colour of Magic (1993)
(Source)

See Allen (1975).

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)

Dave — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 15:53:55 +0000

“Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out,” said the shopkeeper. “That’s what I’ve always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)

Dave — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 20:12:52 +0000

The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)
(Source)

Opening words.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)

Dave — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 20:55:50 +0000

Quimby was eventually killed by a disgruntled poet during an experiment conducted in the palace grounds to prove the disputed accuracy of the proverb “The pen is mightier than the sword,” and in his memory it was amended to include the phrase “only if the sword is very small and the pen is very sharp.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)
(Source)

See Bulwer-Lytton (1839).

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)

Dave — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:06:40 +0000

The trouble with unimaginable horrors was that they were only too easy to imagine …

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)

Dave — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:25:42 +0000

Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn’t take you seriously until you’d actually killed them, by which time it didn’t really matter anyway.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites (1987)

Dave — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 11:50:20 +0000

She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don’t apply to you.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites (1987)
(Source)

Of the character Eskarina "Esk" Smith, modeled after Pratchett's daughter, Rhianna.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites (1987)

Dave — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 23:25:06 +0000

Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they’ve missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. This frees the mind from unnecessary thoughts and gives it a cutting edge where it matters.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites (1987)
(Source)

Frequently paraphrased:

The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites [Granny Weatherwax] (1987)

Dave — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 15:22:02 +0000

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites [Granny Weatherwax] (1987)
(Source)

After Pope.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 23:27:20 +0000

Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it’s the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it’s just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let’s just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colorful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 13:12:02 +0000

Albert grunted. “Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?”
Mort thought for a moment. “No,” he said eventually, “what?”
There was silence.
Then Albert straightened up and said, “Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve ’em right.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 12:36:50 +0000

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.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 23:58:51 +0000

In short, Mort was one of those people who are more dangerous than a bag full of rattlesnakes. He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe. Which was going to be hard, because there wasn’t one.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 18:31:59 +0000

The Creator had a lot of remarkably good ideas when he put the world together, but making it understandable hadn’t been one of them.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 15:20:49 +0000

It was crowded in the Curry Gardens on the corner of God Street and Blood Alley, but only with the cream of society — at least, with those people who are found floating on the top and who, therefore, it’s wisest to call the cream.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 14:07:37 +0000

A faint smile hovered around the man’s lips. It was the sort of smile that lies on sandbanks waiting for incautious swimmers.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 20:21:10 +0000

People don’t alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 16:08:51 +0000

He’d been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 01:25:05 +0000

History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always — eventually — manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:49:27 +0000

“I’ve never seen Death actually at work.”
“Not many have,” said Albert. “Not twice, at any rate.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Mort and Albert.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)

Dave — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 18:34:24 +0000

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 5, Sourcery (1988)

Dave — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 14:37:38 +0000

“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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 5, Sourcery (1988)
(Source)

This quote is more often repeated in paraphrase, e.g., "What is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile? Cats. Cats are nice."

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 5, Sourcery (1988)

Dave — Tue, 04 May 2021 17:15:39 +0000

The truth isn’t easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 5, Sourcery (1988)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 5, Sourcery, ch. 1 (1988)

Dave — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 20:53:24 +0000

“And what would humans be without love?”
Rare, said Death.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 5, Sourcery, ch. 1 (1988)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 6, Wyrd Sisters (1988)

Dave — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 16:18:39 +0000

It would be a pretty good bet that the gods of a world like this probably do not play chess and indeed this is the case. In fact no gods anywhere play chess. They haven’t got the imagination. Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god’s idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 6, Wyrd Sisters (1988)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 7, Pyramids (1989)

Dave — Fri, 08 May 2026 22:53:55 +0000

The role of listeners has never been fully appreciated. However, it is well known that most people don’t listen. They use the time when someone else is speaking to think of what they’re going to say next. True Listeners have always been revered among oral cultures, and prized for their rarity value; bards and poets are ten a cow, but a good Listener is hard to find, or at least hard to find twice.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 7, Pyramids (1989)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 8, Guards, Guards (1989)

Dave — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 23:07:04 +0000

Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest and then I will murmur agreement, not actually say anything. I am not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard …
But no one said anything. The cowards, each man thought.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 8, Guards, Guards (1989)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)

Dave — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 13:17:10 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)

Dave — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 14:11:55 +0000

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.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)
(Source)

Vimes, reflecting.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)

Dave — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:20:24 +0000

You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless, and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape — the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes — we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)
(Source)

The dragon mentally speaking to Wonse.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! [Lord Vetinari] (1989)

Dave — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 12:13:05 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! [Lord Vetinari] (1989)
(Source)

Said while imprisoned in the dungeon. A few scenes later, he adds, to himself, Never build a dungeon you couldn’t get out of, while escaping.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 9, Eric (1990)

Dave — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 21:41:52 +0000

Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It’s the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 9, Eric (1990)
(Source)

Compare to Isabel Allende.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 9, Eric (1990)

Dave — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:02:27 +0000

In the jungles of central Klatch there are, indeed, lost kingdoms of mysterious Amazonian princesses who capture male explorers for specifically masculine duties. These are indeed rigorous and exhausting and the luckless victims do not last long.*

^{* This is because wiring plugs, putting up shelves, sorting out the funny noises in attics, and mowing lawns can eventually reduce even the strongest constitution.}

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 9, Eric (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)

Dave — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:58:35 +0000

The whole of life is just like watching a [film], he thought. 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 all out yourself from the clues. And you never, never get a chance to stay in your seat for the second house.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 14:11:21 +0000

Because inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)

Dave — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 14:48:41 +0000

The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off. A dog’s wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but it has its own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. It’s like having a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures [Ginger] (1990)

Dave — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 16:45:11 +0000

You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world? It’s all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they’re really good at. It’s all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It’s all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad plowmen instead. It’s all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when it’s even possible to find out.
It’s all the people who never get to know what it is that they can really be. It’s all the wasted chances.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 10, Moving Pictures [Ginger] (1990)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

“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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)

Dave — Mon, 29 May 2017 18:53:26 +0000

It was later that the story of Windle Poons really came to an end, if “story” means all that he did and caused and set in motion. In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away — until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)

Dave — Sat, 19 Jan 2019 04:21:46 +0000

“Yo!” said the Dean.
“Yo what?” said Ridcully.
“It’s not a yo what, it’s just a yo,” said the Senior Wrangler, behind him. “It’s a general street greeting and affirmative with convivial military ingroup and masculine bonding-ritual overtones.”
“What? What? Like ‘jolly good’?” said Ridcully.
“I suppose so,” said the Senior Wrangler, reluctantly.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)

Dave — Fri, 31 May 2019 19:09:31 +0000

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.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)

Dave — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 18:06:36 +0000

Inside Every Living Person is a Dead Person Waiting to Get Out …

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man (1991)
(Source)

Graffiti painted by Reg Shoe.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man [Death] (1991)

Dave — Sat, 27 Jul 2019 02:01:26 +0000

Lord, what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man [Death] (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man, ch. 16 (1991)

Dave — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 00:45:43 +0000

“They thought they were doing it for the best,” said Windle. “People often do. It’s amazing, the things that seem a good idea at the time.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man, ch. 16 (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man, ch. 17 (1991)

Dave — Sun, 05 May 2019 22:14:52 +0000

A lot of this was beyond him, but to people like Ridcully this didn’t matter for very long. Ridcully was simple-minded. This doesn’t mean stupid. It just meant that he could only think properly about things if he cut away all the complicated bits around the edges.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 11, Reaper Man, ch. 17 (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 12, Witches Abroad (1991)

Dave — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 14:58:25 +0000

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 12, Witches Abroad (1991)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 13, Small Gods (1992)

Dave — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 16:05:53 +0000

His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools — the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans — and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, “You can’t trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so let’s have a drink.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 13, Small Gods (1992)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 13, Small Gods (1992)

Dave — Wed, 13 May 2015 11:44:00 +0000

Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 13, Small Gods (1992)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 13, Small Gods (1992)

Dave — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 17:27:10 +0000

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.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 13, Small Gods (1992)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 13, Small Gods [Simony] (1992)

Dave — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:51:48 +0000

“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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 13, Small Gods [Simony] (1992)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 14, Lords and Ladies (1992)

Dave — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 15:18:08 +0000

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 14, Lords and Ladies (1992)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 14, Lords and Ladies (1992)

Dave — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 15:32:32 +0000

Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 14, Lords and Ladies (1992)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 14, Lords and Ladies (1992)

Dave — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 23:23:48 +0000

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.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 14, Lords and Ladies (1992)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 14, Maskerade (1995)

Dave — Tue, 18 May 2021 16:39:19 +0000

His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 14, Maskerade (1995)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)

Dave — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 14:45:59 +0000

Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than to curse the darkness.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)

Dave — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:21:18 +0000

Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you’re going to die. So they’ll talk. They’ll gloat.
They’ll watch you squirm. They’ll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)

Dave — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:38:33 +0000

If you had enough money, you could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)

Dave — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 23:56:25 +0000

Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was.
Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)

Dave — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 23:57:52 +0000

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 16, Soul Music (1994)

Dave — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 16:04:23 +0000

Satchelmouth was by no means averse to the finger-foxtrot and the skull fandango, but he’d never murdered anyone, at least on purpose. Satchelmouth had been made aware that he had a soul and, though it had a few holes in it and was a little ragged around the edges, he cherished the hope that some day the god Reg would find him a place in a celestial combo. You didn’t get the best gigs if you were a murderer. You probably had to play the viola.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 16, Soul Music (1994)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 16, Soul Music (1994)

Dave — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 21:45:33 +0000

You could say to the universe this is not fair. And the universe would say: Oh, isn’t it? Sorry.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 16, Soul Music (1994)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 16, Soul Music [Ridcully] (1994)

Dave — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 18:55:19 +0000

“Come on, lad,” he said. “Let’s go home. I’m not sure I’m that interested in music anymore. It’s a world of hertz.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 16, Soul Music [Ridcully] (1994)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 17, Interesting Times (1994)

Dave — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 13:04:44 +0000

Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that’s a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events — the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there — that must also be a miracle. Just because it’s not nice doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 17, Interesting Times (1994)
(Source)

Footnote on the first page.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 17, Interesting Times (1994)

Dave — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 17:51:17 +0000

Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out until too late that he’s been using two queens all along.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 17, Interesting Times (1994)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 19, Feet of Clay [Mr. Hopkinson and Death] (1996)

Dave — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 22:32:05 +0000

“This is most uncalled-for. Couldn’t you have arranged a less awkward time?”
Only by consultation with your murderer.
“It all seems very badly organized. I wish to make a complaint. I pay my taxes, after all.
I am Death, not Taxes. I turn up only once.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 19, Feet of Clay [Mr. Hopkinson and Death] (1996)
(Source)

See Bullock (1716).

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)

Dave — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 20:49:34 +0000

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable.”
Really? As if it was some kind of pink pill? No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little –”
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty. That sort of thing.
“They’re not the same at all!”
You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet — Death waved a hand. And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some … some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point –”
My point exactly.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)

Dave — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:42:43 +0000

Some things are fairly obvious when it’s a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)

Dave — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 19:08:35 +0000

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)

Dave — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:18:04 +0000

But it was much earlier even than that when most people forgot that the very oldest stories are, sooner or later, about blood. Later on they took the blood out to make the stories more acceptable to children, or at least to the people who had to read them to children rather than the children themselves (who, on the whole, are quite keen on blood provided it’s being shed by the deserving), and then wondered where the stories went.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)

Dave — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 15:14:13 +0000

The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as “Things just happen. What the hell.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)

Dave — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 18:38:33 +0000

It was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1988)

Dave — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:11:20 +0000

And Sergeant Colon once again knew a secret about bravery. It was arguably a kind of enhanced cowardice — the knowledge that while death may await you if you advance it will be a picnic compared to the certain living hell that awaits should you retreat.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1988)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1997)

Dave — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:20:38 +0000

The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1997)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1997)

Dave — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 14:04:40 +0000

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.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1997)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1997)

Dave — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 20:03:39 +0000

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 21, Jingo (1997)
(Source)

Vimes pondering.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 21, Jingo [Jackson] (1997)

Dave — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:57:24 +0000

Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm the rest of his life.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 21, Jingo [Jackson] (1997)
(Source)

Variant: "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."

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent (1998)

Dave — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 18:50:02 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent (1998)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent (1998)

Dave — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 23:22:30 +0000

A flash of inspiration struck him with all the force and brilliance that ideas have when they’re travelling through beer.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent (1998)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent (1998)

Dave — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 19:30:08 +0000

There were times that called for mindless, terror-filled panic, and times that called for measured, considered, thoughtful panic.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent (1998)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent [Death and Rincewind] (1999)

Dave — Sun, 09 Jul 2023 18:03:48 +0000

“Is it true that your life passes before your eyes before you die?”
Yes.
“Ghastly thought, really.” Rincewind shuddered. “Oh, gods, I’ve just had another one. Suppose I am about to die and this is my whole life passing in front of my eyes?”
I think perhaps you do not understand. People’s whole lives do pass in front of their eyes before they die. The process is called “living.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent [Death and Rincewind] (1999)
(Source)

Variants and paraphrases:

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.

It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 23, Carpe Jugulum [Granny Weatherwax, Rev. Mightily Oats] (1998)

Dave — Tue, 11 May 2021 17:58:08 +0000

“And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that –”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes –”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things …”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 23, Carpe Jugulum [Granny Weatherwax, Rev. Mightily Oats] (1998)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 23, Carpe Jugulum [Rev. Mightily Oats, Granny Weatherwax] (1998)

Dave — Tue, 25 May 2021 14:28:29 +0000

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 23, Carpe Jugulum [Rev. Mightily Oats, Granny Weatherwax] (1998)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 24, The Fifth Elephant (1999)

Dave — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 16:55:45 +0000

A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 24, The Fifth Elephant (1999)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 25, The Truth [Lord Vetinari] (2000)

Dave — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:16:07 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 25, The Truth [Lord Vetinari] (2000)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 26, Thief of Time (2001)

Dave — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 13:43:32 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 26, Thief of Time (2001)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 26, Thief of Time (2001)

Dave — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 13:44:03 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 26, Thief of Time (2001)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 26, Thief of Time (2001)

Dave — Fri, 26 May 2023 20:15:50 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 26, Thief of Time (2001)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 27, The Last Hero [Leonard] (2001)

Dave — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 18:56:22 +0000

I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 27, The Last Hero [Leonard] (2001)
(Source)

See also Clarke.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 27, The Last Hero [Rincewind] (2001)

Dave — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 19:21:34 +0000

It takes guts to run away, you know. Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 27, The Last Hero [Rincewind] (2001)
(Source)

See also Fuller.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 28, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, ch. 8 [Malicia] (2008)

Dave — Fri, 17 Mar 2023 22:31:09 +0000

If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 28, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, ch. 8 [Malicia] (2008)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)

Dave — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 11:11:57 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)

Dave — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:22:01 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)
(Source)

Internal monologue of Sam Vimes. Vimes is riffing off of the anecdotal gladiator salute to the Roman emperor, "We who are about to die salute you [morituri te salutamus]."

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)

Dave — Fri, 17 May 2024 17:27:40 +0000

One of the hardest lessons of young Sam’s life had been finding out that the people in charge weren’t in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)

Dave — Fri, 24 May 2024 17:33:42 +0000

When he was a boy, he’d read books about great military campaigns, and visited museums and had looked with patriotic pride at the paintings of famous cavalry charges, last stands, and glorious victories. It had come as rather a shock, when he later began to participate in some of these, to find that the painters had unaccountably left out the intestines. Perhaps they just weren’t very good at them.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 29, Night Watch (2002)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 29, Night Watch [Vimes] (2002)

Dave — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 14:46:27 +0000

Here’s some advice boy. Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 29, Night Watch [Vimes] (2002)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men (2003)

Dave — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 13:07:01 +0000

“Now … if you trust in yourself …”
“Yes?”
“… and believe in your dreams …”
“Yes?”
“… and follow your star …” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“… you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men (2003)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men (2003)

Dave — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 12:54:54 +0000

Them as can do has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men (2003)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men (2003)

Dave — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 12:39:20 +0000

“I can see we’re going to get along like a house on fire,” said Miss Tick. “There may be no survivors.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men (2003)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men, ch. 5 (2003)

Dave — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 21:19:59 +0000

“We canna just rush in, ye ken.”
A big bearded Feegle raised his hand. “Point ‘o order, Big Man. Ye can just rush in. We always just rush in.”
“Aye, Big Yan, point well made. But ye gotta know where ye’re just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in anywhere. It looks bad, havin’ to rush oout again straight awa’.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 30, The Wee Free Men, ch. 5 (2003)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 31, Monstrous Regiment (2003)

Dave — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:46:57 +0000

There was this about vampires: they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were … what was the word … deshabille. It meant untidy, but with bags and bags of style.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 31, Monstrous Regiment (2003)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 31, Monstrous Regiment (2003)

Dave — Wed, 06 May 2015 12:01:58 +0000

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 31, Monstrous Regiment (2003)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 31, Monstrous Regiment [Vimes] (2003)

Dave — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 04:48:53 +0000

You take a bunch of people who don’t seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 31, Monstrous Regiment [Vimes] (2003)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 32, A Hat Full of Sky (2004)

Dave — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 20:05:11 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 32, A Hat Full of Sky (2004)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 32, A Hat Full of Sky [Miss Level] (2004)

Dave — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 13:15:09 +0000

There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 32, A Hat Full of Sky [Miss Level] (2004)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 32, A Hat Full of Sky, ch. 11 “Arthur” (2004)

Dave — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:58:51 +0000

[I]t was followed by a long scream of rage mixed with a roar of complaint: “AAaargwannawannaaaagongongonaargggaaaaBLOON!” which is the traditional sound of a very small child learning that with balloons, as with life itself, it is important to know when not to let go of the string. The whole point of balloons is to teach small children this.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 32, A Hat Full of Sky, ch. 11 “Arthur” (2004)
(Source)

This is apparently the origin of the much more frequently found paraphrase:

There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.

This shorter form has been used, among other places, in a Change.org petition to Death to reinstate Pratchett after the author's passing. It is possible Pratchett may have used it somewhere else, but I am unable to find it (it does not show up in the alt.fan.pratchett board in any message from him).

See also Cox.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 35, Wintersmith, ch. 1 [Tiffany] (2006)

Dave — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 15:24:45 +0000

“This I choose to do,” she croaked, her breath leaving little clouds in the air. She cleared her throat and started again. “This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”
It wasn’t a spell, except in her own head, but if you couldn’t make spells work in your own head, you couldn’t make them work at all.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 35, Wintersmith, ch. 1 [Tiffany] (2006)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 37, Unseen Academicals (2009)

Dave — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 12:21:41 +0000

“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.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 37, Unseen Academicals (2009)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 38, I Shall Wear Midnight (2010)

Dave — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 16:51:56 +0000

Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 38, I Shall Wear Midnight (2010)
(Source)

The protagonist, Tiffany, recalling something that Granny Weatherwax had once said.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 38, I Shall Wear Midnight (2010)

Dave — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 16:07:33 +0000

She heard him mutter, “Can you take away this grief?”
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 38, I Shall Wear Midnight (2010)
(Source)

Roland and Tiffany.

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 38, I Shall Wear Midnight (2010)

Dave — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 15:01:59 +0000

There is a lot of folklore about equestrian statues, especially the ones with riders on them. There is said to be a code in the number and placement of the horse’s hooves: If one of the horse’s hooves is in the air, the rider was wounded in battle; two legs in the air means that the rider was killed in battle; three legs in the air indicates that the rider got lost on the way to the battle; and four legs in the air means that the sculptor was very, very clever. Five legs in the air means that there’s probably at least one other horse standing behind the horse you’re looking at; and the rider lying on the ground with his horse lying on top of him with all four legs in the air means that the rider was either a very incompetent horseman or owned a very bad-tempered horse.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 38, I Shall Wear Midnight (2010)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 39, Snuff (2011)

Dave — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 15:48:49 +0000

Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 39, Snuff (2011)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 39, Snuff [Miss Beedle] (2011)

Dave — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 16:30:45 +0000

Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 39, Snuff [Miss Beedle] (2011)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld Series No. 24, The Fifth Elephant (1999)

Dave — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 20:42:06 +0000

Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases such as “and they can deliver it tomorrow” or “so I’ve invited them for dinner” or “they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld Series No. 24, The Fifth Elephant (1999)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld Series No. 24, The Fifth Elephant [footnote] (1999)

Dave — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 17:14:20 +0000

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 really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination — but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld Series No. 24, The Fifth Elephant [footnote] (1999)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld, Book 18, Maskerade (1995)

Dave — Wed, 20 May 2026 14:59:32 +0000

People who would not believe a High Priest if he said the sky was blue, and was able to produce signed affidavits to this effect from his white-haired old mother and three Vestal virgins, would trust just about anything whispered darkly behind their hand by a complete stranger in a pub.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld, Book 18, Maskerade (1995)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Foreword to David Pringle, ed., The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1999)

Dave — Fri, 05 May 2023 20:34:02 +0000

The suggestion that the world could be completely other than it is always annoys those who are content with the way things are. Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one. Rulers are suspicious of new worlds where their writ does not run. Jailers don’t like escapism.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Foreword to David Pringle, ed., The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1999)
(Source)

Often just given as "Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one."

Pratchett, Terry -- Interview

Dave — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:24:11 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Interview

Pratchett, Terry -- Interview in Leonard Marcus, The Wand in the World: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy (2006)

Dave — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 13:22:31 +0000

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Interview in Leonard Marcus, The Wand in the World: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy (2006)
(Source)

This quotation is sometimes given with "But I may be wrong" as a following sentence, but that does not appear in the original.

Pratchett, Terry -- Interview, Science Fiction Book Club (1999)

Dave — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 14:42:19 +0000

The thing about Tom Clancy is that you can start reading a Tom Clancy book when the plane takes off in London and you’re still reading it when the plane lands in Sydney. And then you can use it to beat snakes to death.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Interview, Science Fiction Book Club (1999)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett

Dave — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:23:42 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (11 Jan 1997)

Dave — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 18:29:37 +0000

Oh dear, I’m feeling political today. It’s just that it’s dawned on me that “zero tolerance” only seems to mean putting extra police in poor, run-down areas, and not in the Stock Exchange.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (11 Jan 1997)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (14 Jun 1998)

Dave — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:35:23 +0000

Too many people want to have written.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (14 Jun 1998)
(Source)

See Parker.

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (16 Apr 2002)

Dave — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 15:58:21 +0000

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (16 Apr 2002)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (1994-05-08)

Dave — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 16:46:56 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (1994-05-08)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (20 Jun 2002)

Dave — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:39:02 +0000

However, you do need rules. Driving on the left (or the right or, in parts of Europe, on the left and the right as the mood takes you) is a rule which works, since following it means you’re more likely to reach your intended rather than your final destination.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (20 Jun 2002)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (26 Aug 1998)

Dave — Fri, 16 Feb 2018 17:00:12 +0000

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (26 Aug 1998)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (30 May 1998)

Dave — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:41:52 +0000

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 (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (30 May 1998)
(Source)

Pratchett, Terry -- Post, alt.fan.pratchett (7 Jun 1994)

Dave — Wed, 27 May 2015 13:44:29 +0000

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

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett (7 Jun 1994)
(Source)