Terry pratchett quotes

There is always time for another last minute

Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.

After all, when you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.

It's lies. It's all lies. Some of them are just prettier than others, that's all. People see what they think is there.

If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged.

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

Ultimately, there is the freedom to take the consequences.

Demons were like genies or philosophy professors - if you didn't word things exactly right, they delighted in giving you absolutely accurate and completely misleading answers.

The IQ of a mob is the IQ of its dumbest member divided by the number of mobsters.

Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.

Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

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

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.

The conflict is not between Christianity and Islam or between East and West - instead, it is between stupid people and other stupid people.

In the world I live in, 'not worse' is nearly as good as 'better'.

A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

You get a wonderful view from the point of no return.

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

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

Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.

People don't like change. But make the change fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.

You can't inspire people with facts. They need a cause. They need a symbol.

Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time.

We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake?

In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

Open your eyes and then open your eyes again.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

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

Imagination is only intelligence having fun. A healthy mind knows how to switch between worlds, and which one you need to eat and sleep in.

You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?

If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.

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

Just because things are obvious doesn't mean they're true.

The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you’ve got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You’ve got to stop. You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.

Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought.

One person is nothing. Two people are a nation.

Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.

The harder I work, the luckier I become.

A bad hunter chases. A good hunter waits.

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

Either all days are holy or none are.

You're not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more," said Yo-less. "It's speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons.

- I notice you didn't laugh, Mr. Black! - No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.

Death: "THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT." Albert: "Oh, yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.

The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to.

When all else failed, she tried being reasonable.

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.

If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.

Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

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

Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like 'What is my purpose in life?' very quickly lacked both.

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

Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.

Once you gave a thing a name, you gave it life.

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.

I try to make computers say things like You have 60 seconds to achieve safe distance.

Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate.

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?

This book was written using 100% recycled words.

There's a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. And it's wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people just walk along them the wrong way.

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.

Even a really bad creator would at least have started with Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Surprise.

I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business.

Don't be smart. Smart is only a polished version of dumb. Try intelligence. It will surely see you through.

There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.

Things have no power that humans don't put there.

I don't think I've ever been critical of the money Douglas Adams makes, especially since, as has been tactfully pointed out, I myself have had to change banks having filled the first one up.

It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren't doing.

The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one that looks as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more stairways than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

I'm trying to remember how you tell the time by looking at the sun." -"I should leave it for a while, it's too bright to see the numbers at the moment.

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.

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

The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.

No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.

Death: Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom.

I commend my soul to any god that can find it.

Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it were something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you.

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

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.

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

The worst thing you can do is nothing.

I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.

The world is a globe — the farther you sail, the closer to home you are.

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

If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.

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

In the words of the philosopher Sceptum, the founder of my profession: am I going to get paid for this?

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. 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.

There’s no point in believing in things that exist.

Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.

Things just happen. What the hell.

Real education happens when you pick up a fact here, and another fact there, and put them together and get an insight.

The universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. There is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.

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.

When you look into the abyss, it’s not supposed to wave back.

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

The pen is mightier than the sword ... if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.

The Librarian considered matters for a while. So…a dwarf and a troll. He preferred both species to humans. For one thing, neither of them were great readers. The Librarian was, of course, very much in favor of reading in general, but readers in particular got on his nerves. There was something, well, sacrilegious about the way they kept taking books off the shelves and wearing out the words by reading them. He liked people who loved and respected books, and the best way to do that, in the Librarian’s opinion, was to leave them on the shelves where Nature intended them to be.

Progress just means bad things happen faster.

Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.

Not all questions are answered, but fortunately some answers are questioned.

It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.

Seeing things a human shouldn't have to see makes us human.

Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.

Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.

...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.

Divide by cucumber error. Please reinstall universe and reboot.

He's out of his depth on a wet pavement.

Sometimes, the best answer is a more interesting question.

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.

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

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out til too late that he's been playing with two queens all along.

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

Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do.

I don't think I've drunk enough beer to understand that.

"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever" he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?"

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

Most of my schooldays were the worst day of my life.

The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was, ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?

At least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe.