Terry Pratchett Quotes

Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch. XXI, v.16) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. This is somewhat less than 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essential services take up at least two thirds of this space, this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant- assuming that every creature that could be called ‘human’ is allowed in, and the the human race eventually totals a thousand times the numbers of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or - a happy thought - that pets are allowed.

~ Terry Pratchett

Heaven has no taste.Now-And not one single sushi restaurant.A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face.

~ Terry Pratchett

I don’t reckon it’s allowed, going round setting fire to people,” said Adam. “Otherwise people’d be doin’ it all the time.”“It’s all right if you’re religious,” said Brian reassuringly. “And it stops the witches from goin’ to Hell, so I expect they’d be quite grateful if they understood it properly.

~ Terry Pratchett

Well, Hell was worse, of course, by definition. But Crowley remembered what Heaven was like, and it had quite a few things in common with Hell. You couldn’t get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell.

~ Terry Pratchett

You couldn't get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell.

~ Terry Pratchett

It was dawning on the wizards that they were outside the University, at night and without permission, for the first time in decades. A certain suppressed excitement crackled from man to man. Any watch trained in reading body language would have been prepared to bet that, after the click, someone was going to suggest that they might as well go somewhere and have a few drinks, and then someone else would fancy a meal, and then there was always room for a few more drinks, and then it would be 5 a.m. and the city guards would be respectfully knocking on the University gates and asking if the Archchancellor would care to step down to the cells to identify some alleged wizards who were singing an obscene song in six-part harmony, and perhaps he would also care to bring some money to pay for all the damage. Because inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.

~ Terry Pratchett

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.

~ Terry Pratchett

As if one tiny choice by someone unimportant could make that much difference! History had to be a bit tougher than that. It all sprang back eventually, didn't it? He was sure he'd read something about that, somewhere. If it wasn't like that, no one would ever dare do anything.

~ Terry Pratchett

That was messages without meaning: telepathy without brains.

~ Terry Pratchett

Right!Right!You can get there!I can get there!You're a natural at counting to two!I'm a nat'ral at counting to two!If you can count to two, you can count to anything!If I can count to two, I can count to anything!And then the world is your mollusc!My mollusc! What's a mollusc?

~ 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

Its like people care more abput their pride than about what's correct, about the truth.

~ Terry Pratchett

It's like people care more about their pride than about what's correct, about the truth.

~ Terry Pratchett

…We were born vampires.I thought you became –— vampires by being bitten? Dear me, no. Oh, we can turn people into vampires, it’s an easy technique, but what would be the point? When you eat… now what is it you eat? Oh yes, chocolate… you don’t want to turn it into another Agnes Nitt, do you? Less chocolate to go around.He sighed. Oh dear, superstition, superstition everywhere we turn.

~ Terry Pratchett

It’s most unfair. Once people find out you’re a vampire they act as if you’re some kind of monster.

~ Terry Pratchett

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

~ 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

What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that?

~ Terry Pratchett

It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to 'serve the community' by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get in sideways.

~ Terry Pratchett

Could I please amend that suggestion? Could you not be there in the second darkest shadow one hour before midnight, to see who steps into the darkest shadow?

~ Terry Pratchett

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

~ Terry Pratchett

He grinned. It was the sort of grin that Agnes supposed was called infectious but, then, so was measles.

~ Terry Pratchett

Afterward, there was that long, crowded pause in which everyone decides that although they are very shaken, and possibly upside down, they are, to their surprise, still alive.

~ Terry Pratchett

It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.

~ Terry Pratchett

He had a notebook. He took notes in it. It was always useful. And them Sybil, gods bless her, had brought him this fifteen-function imp which did so many other things, although as far as he could see at least ten of its functions consisted of apologizing for its inefficiency in the other five.

~ 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

She never sent the castle to sleep”, said Granny, “that’s just an old wife’s tale. She just stirred up time a little. It’s not as hard as people think, everyone does it all the time. It’s like rubber, is time, you can stretch it to suit yourself.”Magrat was about to say: That’s not right, time is time, every second lasts a second, that’s its job. The she recalled weeks that had flown past and afternoons that had lasted forever. Some minutes had lasted hours, some hours had gone past so quickly she hadn’t been aware they’d gone past at all.“But that’s just people’s perception, isn’t it?”“Oh yes”, said Granny, “of course it is, it all is, what difference does that make?

~ Terry Pratchett

Granny Weatherwax had a primal snore. It had never been tamed. No one had ever had to sleep next to it, to curb its wilder excesses by means of a kick, a prod in the small of the back, or a pillow used as a bludgeon. It had had years in a lonely bedroom to perfect the knark, the graaah, and the gnoc, gnoc, gnoc unimpeded by the nudges, jabs, and occasional attempts at murder that usually moderate the snore impulse over time

~ Terry Pratchett

Then he kept to the back streets, and found a place that did a very reasonable double sausage, egg, bacon and fried slice, in the hope that food could replace sleep.

~ Terry Pratchett

There are the people of the day, and the creatures of the night. And it's important to remember that the creatures of the night aren't simply the people of the day staying up late because they think that makes them cool and interesting. It takes more than heavy mascara and a pale complexion to cross the divide.

~ Terry Pratchett

Yes, she'd made a mistake... but she wasn't going to be bullied. You couldn't let boys go around raining on your lava and ogling other people's watercolors.

~ Terry Pratchett

It struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death must be the loneliest creature in the universe. In the great party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen.

~ Terry Pratchett

You are in favour of the common people?” said Dragon mildly.The common people?” said Vimes. “They’re nothing special. They’re no different from the rich and powerful except they’ve got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit. So I suppose I’ve got to be on their side.

~ Terry Pratchett

People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless.

~ Terry Pratchett

Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.

~ Terry Pratchett

... drink levels all mankind. It is the ultimate democrat

~ Terry Pratchett

Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.

~ Terry Pratchett

Looking out the window, Moist saw a small swarm of goblins leave the train and at first he thought, ha! Trust the buggers to run away, and then he mentally corrected himself: that was storybook thinking and with clearer eyesight and a bit of understanding he realized that the goblins were scrambling up to the delvers on the rocks and beating the shit out of them by diving into the multiple layers of dwarf clothing. The delvers discovered all too rapidly that trying to fight while a busy goblin was in your underwear was very bad for the concentration.

~ Terry Pratchett

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

You'll get into dreadful trouble and it won't be my fault. You are bad people.

~ Terry Pratchett