Terry Pratchett Quotes - Page 2

Do you understand what’s going on here?”Hodgesaargh took another slow look at the scene. “No,” he said.“In that case’s not my job to understand this sort of thing,” said the falconer. “I wasn’t trained. Probably takes a lot of training, understanding this. That’s your job. And her job. Can you understand what’s going on when a bird’s been trained and’ll make a kill and still came back to the wrist?”“Well, no—”“There you are, then. So that’s all right. Cup of tea, was it?
Terry Pratchett
Why are our people going out there,” said Mr. Boggis of the Thieves’ Guild."Because they are showing a brisk pioneering spirit and seeking wealth and … additional wealth in a new land,” said Lord Vetinari.“What’s in it for the Klatchians?” said Lord Downey.“Oh, they’ve gone out there because they are a bunch of unprincipled opportunists always ready to grab something for northern,” said Lord Vetinari.“A mastery summation, if I may say so, my lord,” said Mr. Burleigh. The Patrician looked down again at his notes. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, I seem to have read those last to sentences in the wrong order…
Terry Pratchett
Why are our people going out there,” said Mr. Boggis of the Thieves’ Guild.Because they are showing a brisk pioneering spirit and seeking wealth and … additional wealth I na new land,” said Lord Vetinari.“What’s in it for the Klatchians?” said Lord Downey.“Oh, they’ve gone out there because they are a bunch of unprincipled opportunists always ready to grab something for northern,” said Lord Vetinari.“A mastery summation, if I may say so, my lord,” said Mr. Burleigh. The Patrician looked down again at his notes. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, I seem to have read those last to sentences in the wrong order…
Terry Pratchett
Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos were lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting 'All Gods are bastards.
Terry Pratchett
Because the world all twisted up and wrong, like distorted glass, only came back into focus if you looked at it through the bottom of a bottle.
Terry Pratchett
Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad.
Terry Pratchett
Luck came to those who left a space for it.
Terry Pratchett
Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.
Terry Pratchett
Million-to-one chances...crop up nine times out of ten.
Terry Pratchett
I could use you—if you pass the tests, of course. There are three of them. You have passed the first.""What are the other—" Hrun paused, his lips moved soundlessly and then he hazarded, "two?
Terry Pratchett
He's got a box with a demon in it that draws pictures," said Rincewind shortly. "Do what the madman says and he will give you gold.
Terry Pratchett
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
Terry Pratchett
They want dancing girls! They want thrills! They want elephants! They want people falling off roofs! They want dreams! The world is full of little people with big dreams!
Terry Pratchett
The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.
Terry Pratchett
You're wondering if I really would slit your throat. To tell the truth, I don't know either, but think of the fun we could have finding out.
Terry Pratchett
That's the fashion. Fast as the speed of light, they say. Ha! It's got no soul, sir, no heart.
Terry Pratchett
I dinna want to disappoint ye, but we's in a cellar right here, and it's full o' tatties.'After a while a voice said: 'So where izzit?''Maybe it's got the day off?''What's a demon need a day off for?''Tae gae an' see its ol' mam an' dad, mebbe?''Oh, aye? Demons have mams, do they?
Terry Pratchett
The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.
Terry Pratchett
Colon has always thought that heroes had some special kind of clockwork that made them go out and die famously for god, country and apple pie, or whatever particular delicacy their mother made. It had never occurred to him that they might do it because they'd get yelled at if they didn't.
Terry Pratchett
Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water!
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I kill in my own time,” he said. “In any case, killing unconscious people isn’t right.”“I can’t think of a more opportune time,” said the Loremaster.
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I'VE NEVER BEEN VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT, said Bill Door. I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.
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The gods," he said. "Imprisoned in a thought. And perhaps they were never more than a dream.
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The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?
Terry Pratchett
I mean, it's one thing saying you've got the best god, but sayin' it's the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my opinion. I know where I can find at least two any day of the week. And they say everyone starts out bad and only gets good by believin' in Om, which is frankly damn nonsense.
Terry Pratchett
Wizards don’t believe in gods. They didn’t deny their existence, of course. They just didn’t believe. It was nothing personal; they weren’t actually rude about it. Gods were a visible part of narrativium that made things work, that gave the world its purpose. It was just that they were best avoided close up.
Terry Pratchett
It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.
Terry Pratchett
She was the Goddess Who Must Not Be Named; those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn't. She was like that.
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Thou shalt not submit thy god to market forces.
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Om rubed his head. This wasn't god-like thinking. It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn't a game down there. People died. Bits got chopped off. We're like eagles up here, he thought. Sometimes we show tortoise how to fly. Then we let go.
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I HAVE MADE THIS FOR YOU. She reached out and took a damp square of cardboard. Water dripped off the bottom. Somewhere in the middle, a few brown feathers seemed to have been glued on. 'Thank you. Er ... what is it?'ALBERT SAID THERE OUGHT TO BE SNOW ON IT, BUT IT APPEARS TO HAVE MELTED, said Death. IT IS, OF COURSE, A HOGSWATCH CARD.'Oh ...' THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A ROBIN ON IT AS WELL, BUT I HAD CONSIDERABLE DIFFICULTY IN GETTING IT TO STAY ON. 'Ah...'IT WAS NOT AT ALL COOPERATIVE.'Really ...?'IT DID NOT SEEM TO GET INTO THE HOGSWATCH SPIRIT AT ALL.
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Susan stared at him.The blue glow in Death’s eyes gradually faded, and as the light died it sucked at her gaze so that it was dragged into the eye sockets and into the darkness beyond……which went on and on, for ever. There was no word for it. Even eternity was a human idea. Giving it a name gave it a length; admittedly, a very long one. But this darkness was what was left when eternity had given up. It was where Death lived. Alone.
Terry Pratchett
Like sheep which, having been driven to a pasture, can now spread out at their leisure, the clouds began to drift. Afternoon sunlight sliced through into the still waters. The boomerang hung in the sky, and the boy thought he would have to find a new word for the way the colours gl
Terry Pratchett
It was the kind of storm that suggests the whole sky has swallowed a diuretic.
Terry Pratchett
You see," the tourist went on, "you know that thing you do with seaweed?"Bethan, brought up on the Vortex Plains, had only heard of the sea in stories, and had decided she didn't like it. She looked blank. "Eat it?" "No, what you do is, you hang it up outside your door, and it tells you if it's going to rain." Another thing Bethan had learned was that there was no real point in trying to understand anything Twoflower said, and that all anyone could do was run alongside the conversation and hope to jump on it as it turned a corner."I see," she said. "Rincewind is like that, you see." "Like seaweed." "Yes. If there was anything at all to be frightened about, he'd be frightened. But he's not. The star is just about the only thing I've ever seen him not frightened of. If he's not worried, then take it from me, there's nothing to be worried about." "It's not going to rain?" said Bethan. "Well, no, metaphorically speaking." "Oh." Bethan decided not to ask what "metaphorically" meant, in case it had something to do with seaweed.
Terry Pratchett
It was raining in the small, mountainous country of Llamedos. It was always raining in Llamedos. Rain was the country's main export. It had rain mines.
Terry Pratchett
the whole point of the wish business was to see to it that what the client got was exactly what he asked for and exactly what he didn't really want.
Terry Pratchett
Light died in the west. Night and tears took the Nation. The star of Water drifted among the clouds like a murderer softly leaving the scene of the crime.
Terry Pratchett
What was supposed to be so special about a full moon? It was only a big circle of light. And the dark of the moon was only darkness. But halfway between the two, when the moon was between the worlds of light and dark, when even the moon lived on the edge...maybe then a witch could believe in the moon.
Terry Pratchett
It might have interested Newt to know that, of the thirty-nine thousand women tested with the pin during the centuries of witch-hunting, twenty-nine thousand said “ouch,” nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine didn’t feel anything because of the use of the aforesaid retractable pins, and one witch declared that it had miraculously cleared up the arthritis in her leg.
Terry Pratchett
Tiffany jumped when she saw a balloon sail up above the trees, catch the wind, and swoop away, but it turned out to be just a balloon and not a lump of excess Brian. She could tell this because it 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
But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself: 'Is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end was hard work and self-denial?
Terry Pratchett
Here you are. Would you like some pickles?”“Pickles gives me the wind something awful.”“In that case—”“Oh, I wasn’t saying no,” Mistress Weatherwax said, taking two large pickled cucumbers.
Terry Pratchett
The English, by and large, being a crass and indolent race, were not as keen on burning women as other countries in Europe.
Terry Pratchett
Even the pious Scots, locked throughout history in a long-drawn-out battle with their arch-enemies the Scots, managed a few burnings to while away the long winter evenings.
Terry Pratchett
I'm not a lady, I'm a witch.
Terry Pratchett
We ain’t going to curse anyone,” said Granny firmly. “It hardly ever works if they don’t know you’ve done it.
Terry Pratchett
We got the spell exactly right. Except for the ingredients. And most of the poetry. And it probably wasn’t the right time. And Gytha took most of it home for the cat, which couldn’t of been proper.
Terry Pratchett
Witches just aren’t like that,” said Magrat. “We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead."The other two looked at her with a certain amount of surprised admiration. She blushed, although not greenly, and looked at her knees.“Goodie Whemper did a recipe,” she confessed. “It’s quite easy. What you do is, you get some lead, and you—”“I don’t think that would be appropriate,” said Granny carefully, after a certain amount of internal struggle. “It could give people the wrong idea.”“But not for long,” said Nanny wistfully.
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At last the magic caught, and she managed to vault clumsily onto it before it trundled into the night sky as gracefully as a duck with one wing missing.
Terry Pratchett
Gossiping's part of witchcraft,' said Tiffany. 'They're checking to see if they've gone batty yet.
Terry Pratchett
No,' she said. 'No, I don't reckon that's what I do now. Are you watchin', Mrs Gogol? Are you watchin' real close?' Her gaze travelled the room and rested for just a fraction of a second on Magrat. Then she reached over, carefully, and thrust her arm up to the elbow into the burning torch. And the doll in Erzulie Gogol's hands burst into flame. It went on blazing even after the witch had screamed and dropped it on to the floor. It went on burning until Nanny Ogg ambled over with a jug of fruit juice from the buffet, whistling between her teeth, and put it out. Granny withdrew her hand. It was unscathed.
Terry Pratchett
For a witch stands on the very edge of everything, between the light and the dark, between life and death, making choices, making decisions so that others may pretend no decisions have even been needed. Sometimes they need to help some poor soul through the final hours, help them to find the door, not to get lost in the dark.
Terry Pratchett
You couldn't escape the pointy hat, though. There was nothing magical about a pointy hat except that it said that the woman underneath it was a witch. People paid attention to a pointy hat.
Terry Pratchett
I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business.
Terry Pratchett
And people think she killed him?" said Miss Tick. She sighed. "They probably think she cooked him in the oven, or somet
Terry Pratchett
You don't need none of that," she said. "You need headology.
Terry Pratchett
Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house.
Terry Pratchett
Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.
Terry Pratchett
If you really want to upset a witch, do her a favor which she has no means of repaying. The unfulfilled obligation will nag at her like a hangnail.
Terry Pratchett