Terry Pratchett Quotes

They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings.It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on

~ Terry Pratchett

The games we play are lessons we learn. The assumptions we make, things we ignore, and things we change make us what we become.

~ Terry Pratchett

Miss Tick sniffed. 'You could say this advice is priceless,' she said. 'Are you listening?''Yes,' said Tiffany.'Good. 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 get beaten by people who spent THEIR time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.

~ Terry Pratchett

The invisible people knew that happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in.

~ Terry Pratchett

Down, boy! Couchant! I said couchant! No! Not rampant!

~ Terry Pratchett

Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards.

~ Terry Pratchett

call it empathy. That means putting yourself in the place of the other person and seeing their point of view. I suppose it's because in the very olden days, when humans had to fight fir themselves every day, they needed to find people who would fight with them too, and together we lived—yes, and prospered. Humans need other humans—it's as simple as that.

~ Terry Pratchett

I told her we were going to get married, and all she could talk about was frogs.She said there's these hills where it's hot and rains all the time, and in the rainforests there are these very tall trees and right in the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowers called . . . bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flowers and makes little pools and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs live their whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and don't even know about the ground, and once you know the world is full of things like that, your life is never the same.

~ Terry Pratchett

It's supposed to be jolly, with mistletoe and holly... and other things ending in olly.

~ Terry Pratchett

It's madness, of course', thought Moist. 'But now I've got it, too.

~ Terry Pratchett

In Ankh-Morpork you can be whoever you want to be and sometimes people laugh and sometimes they clap, and mostly and beautifully, they don't really care.

~ Terry Pratchett

And then there were cats, thought Dog. He'd surprised the huge ginger cat from next door and had attempted to reduce it to cowering jelly by means of the usual glowing stare and deep-throated growl, which had always worked on the damned in the past. This time they had earned him a whack on the nose that had made his eyes water. Cats, Dog considered, were clearly a lot tougher than lost souls. He was looking forward to a further cat experiment, which he planned would consist of jumping around and yapping excitedly at it. It was a long shot, but it just might work.

~ Terry Pratchett

Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.

~ Terry Pratchett

Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.

~ Terry Pratchett

Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company, but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them.

~ Terry Pratchett

Witches were a bit like cats. They didn’t much like one another’s company but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them. And what you might need them for was to tell you, as a friend, that you were beginning to cackle.

~ Terry Pratchett

Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.

~ Terry Pratchett

Dogs are not like cats, who amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw. Men made dogs, they took wolves and gave them human things--unnecessary intelligence, names, a desire to belong, and a twitching inferiority complex. All dogs dream wolf dreams, and know they're dreaming of biting their Maker. Every dog knows, deep in his heart, that he is a Bad Dog...

~ Terry Pratchett

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

~ Terry Pratchett

Er, excuse me,' said the man as Nanny Ogg turned away, 'but what is that on your shoulders?''It's. . . a fur collar,' said Nanny.'Excuse me, but I just saw it flick its tail.''Yes. I happen to believe in beauty without cruelty.

~ Terry Pratchett

The purr is very important. It's the purr that does it every time. It's the purr that makes up for the Things Under the Bed, the occasional pungency, the 4 a.m. yowl. Other creatures went in for big teeth, long legs or over-active brains, while cats just settled for a noise that tells the world they're feeling happy.

~ Terry Pratchett

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

~ Terry Pratchett

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

~ Terry Pratchett

Learning how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder, maybe. There'd be a sight more frogs in this world if I didn't know how not to turn people into them. And big pink balloons, too.

~ Terry Pratchett

To Tiffany's surprise, Nanny Ogg was weeping gently. Nanny took another swig from her flagon and wiped her eyes. 'Cryin' helps sometimes,' she said. 'No shame in tears for them as you've loved. Sometimes I remember one of my husbands and shed a tear or two. The memories're there to be treasured, and it's no good to get morbid-like about it.

~ Terry Pratchett

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

~ Terry Pratchett

But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever - provided, naturally, that you don't go and look. This is known as finance.

~ Terry Pratchett

Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where's your coffee? You've got coffee, haven't you? C'mon, everyone's got coffee! Spill the beans!

~ Terry Pratchett

Living this long's not as wonderful as people think. I mean, you get the same amount of youth as everyone else, but a great big extra helping of being very old and deaf and creaky.

~ Terry Pratchett

Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side!

~ Terry Pratchett

It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary gray goo if its only real purpose was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys.

~ Terry Pratchett

They are tragic,' said Vetinari, 'and we laugh at their tragedy as we laugh at our own. The painted grin leers out at us from the darkness, mocking our insane belief in order, logic, status, the reality of reality. The mask knows that we are born on the banana skin that leads only to the open manhole cover of doom, and all we can hope for are the cheers of the crowd.

~ Terry Pratchett

Granny looked up at the zombie. He was - or, technically, had been - a tall, handsome man. He still was, only now he looked like someone who had walked through a room full of cobwebs.'What's your name, dead man?' she said.

~ Terry Pratchett

There are some laws that are coded into the very nature of the universe, and one is: There Is Never Enough Shelf Space.

~ Terry Pratchett

Time and space were, from Death's point of view, merely things that he'd heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not.

~ Terry Pratchett

I hope you're not proposing to enslave us,' said Twoflower.Marchesa looked genuinely shocked. 'Certainly not! Whatever could have given you that idea? Your lives in Krull will be rich, full and comfortable-''Oh, good,' said Rincewind.'-just not very long.

~ Terry Pratchett

You Say To People 'Throw Off Your Chains' And They Make New Chains For Themselves?

~ Terry Pratchett

She’d struck Esk once before – the blow a baby gets to introduce it to the world and give it a rough idea of what to expect from life.

~ Terry Pratchett

He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spent ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air everyday.

~ Terry Pratchett

Watching a dog try to chew a large piece of toffee is a pastime fit for gods. Mr. Fusspot's mixed ancestry had given him a dexterity of jaw that was truly awesome. He somersaulted happily around the floor, making faces like a rubber gargoyle in a washing machine.

~ Terry Pratchett