Top 1451 Quotes & Sayings by Terry Pratchett - Page 21

"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?"

Unseen University was much bigger on the inside. Thousands of years as the leading establishment of practical magic in a world where dimensions were largely a matter of chance in any case had left it bulging in places where it shouldn't have places. There were rooms containing rooms which, if you entered them, turned out to contain the room you'd started with, which can be a problem if you are in a conga line.

You’d better tell me what you know, toad,” said Tiffany. “Miss Tick isn’t here. I am.” “Another world is colliding with this one,” said the toad. “There. Happy now? That’s what Miss Tick thinks. But it’s happening faster than she expected. All the monsters are coming back.” “Why?” “There’s no one to stop them.” There was silence for a moment. “There’s me,” said Tiffany.

-Oh yes? Can you identify yourself? -Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.

I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset cos' they act like people", said Adam severely. "Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.

It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was too full of the boring and mundane.

It's a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi' a toad

Ye ken, we've been robbin' and running aroound on all kinds o' worlds for a lang time, and I'll tell ye this: The universe is a lot more comp-li-cated than it looks from the ooutside.

You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘If only I’d…’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it.

He'd heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true.

You are very clever,' said the old man shyly. 'I would like to eat your brains, one day,' For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, 'You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!', but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for, 'It's very kind of you to say so.

Some people think this is paranoia, but it isn't. Paranoids only think everyone is out to get them. Wizards know it.

5.Buggre Alle this for a Larke I amme sick to mye Hart of typefetinge. Master Biltonn if no Gentelmann, and Master Scagges now more that a tighte fisted Southwarke Knobbefticke. I telle you, onne a daye laike thif Ennywone withe half and oz of Sense shoulde bee oute in the Suneshain, ane nott Stucke here alle the lielong dale inn thif mowldey olde By-Our-Lady Workefhoppe *AE@;I*

(About a cookbook...) - What about this one? Maids of Honor? - Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.

See a pin and pick it up, and, all day long, you'll have a pin.

And what are you doing on it, I would like to know? Running away from home, yesno? If you were a boy I'd say are you going to seek your fortune?" "Can't girls seek their fortune?" "I think they're supposed to seek a boy with a fortune.

History isn't like that. 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 familar 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. It's been around a long time.

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.

(About sweeping).... What he was in FACT doing was moving the dirt around with a broom, to give it a change of scenery and a chance to make new friends.

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.

Just to keep bad dreams at bay, she took a swig out of a bottle that smelled of apples and happy brain-death.

You know, you're rather amusingly wrong.

It was then that Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing people's doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money.

She was, in fact, quite a pleasant looking girl, even if her bosom had clearly been intended for a girl two feet taller; but she was not Her. The Egregious Professor of Grammar and Usage would have corrected this to "she was not she," which would have caused the Professor of Logic to spit out his drink.

What's money interested in? More money.

Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o'course.

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

In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape of the M25 forms the sigil *odegra* in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means 'Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds'.

This book had two authors, and they were both the same person.

Some of them wanted to sell me snake oil and I'm not necessarily going to dismiss all of these, as I have never found a rusty snake.

What's the orbital velocity of the moon?

Sybil's female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.

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'.

Given enough coffee I could rule the world

Thats how we survive infinity - we kill it by breaking it up into small bits.

A Duke couldn't have the arse hanging out of his trousers when meeting foreign diplomats. Actually even plain old Sam Vimes never had the arse hanging out of his trousers, either, but no one would have actually started a war if he had.

Nigel gave the lamp a cautious buff and small smoking red letters appeared in the air. "Hi," Nigel read aloud, "Do not put down the lamp because your custom is important to us. Please leave a wish after the tone and, very shortly, it will be our command. In the meantime, have a nice eternity."

Everyone's heard of Erwin Schrodinger's famous thought experiment. You put a cat in a box with a bottle of poison, which many people would suggest is about as far as you need to go.

Haven't you got any romance in your soul?" said Magrat plaintively. "No," said Granny. "I ain't. And stars don't care what you wish, and magic don't make things better, and no one doesn't get burned who sticks their hand in a fire. If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What's real, what's not real, and what's the difference.

People are often so busy living that they never stop to wonder why.

"I'm sorry, I just got carried away," hissed Aziraphale.

The Kappamaki, a whaling research ship, was currently researching the question: How many whales can you catch in one week?

Things just happen. What the hell.

The space between the young reader’s eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril.’

There are plenty of people who believe that Elvis is alive, or that aliens occasionally land here to do highly personal things to people, or that the whole idea of evolution is a conspiracy of godless scientists. Almost all of these people can vote and some of them have got guns.

She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itsel

The students were staring at her in the manner of those who have heard of the species 'female' but have never expected to get this close to one.

Currently, it was leading him through a neighborhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you'd bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and garbage were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality, and the graffiti was close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.

And Sam Vimes thought: Why is Young Sam's nursery full of farmyard animals anyway? Why are his books full of moo-cows and baa-lambs? He is growing up in the city. He will only see them on a plate! They go sizzle!

History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it

You can't kill me, I've got a magic... AAAARGH !

Next comes the realist phase ("After all, from a purely geometrical point of view a cat is only a tube with a door at the top.")

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.

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.

In my experience, what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid.

There are thousands of good reasons why magic doesn't rule the world. They're called Witches and Wizards.

There are no medium-sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there's light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space ... then there's a race - between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up. Sometimes, you can make your own space.

If you want to change a whole people, then you start with the girls. It stands to reason: they learn faster, and they pass on what they learn to their children.

Oh, a very useful philosophical animal, your average tortoise. Outrunning metaphorical arrows, beating hares in races... very handy.

I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.