Quotes from Terry Pratchett

What does a man stand up to do, a woman sit down to do, and a dog lift its leg to do?" And then, when everyone was too embarrassed to answer, she'd triumphantly shriek "Shake hands!

An upturned tortoise is the ninth most pathetic thing in the entire multiverse.

You could trust numbers, except perhaps for pi, but he was working on that in his spare time and it was bound to give in sooner or later.

study was never a one-way thing. A man might spend his life peering at the private life of elementary particles and then find he either knew who he was or where he was, but not both.

When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtle would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis.

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

The best man. You know? He hands you the ring and has to marry the bride if you ran away and so on. The Dean's been reading up on it, haven't you, Dean? Oh, yes, said the Dean, who'd spent all the previous day with Lady Deirdre Waggon's Book of Etiquette. She's got to marry someone once she's turned up. You can't have unmarried brides flapping around the place, being a danger to society. I completely forgot about a best man! said Vimes.

It makes you wonder if there is anything to astrology after all.' 'Oh, there is,' said Susan. 'Delusion, wishful thinking and gullibility.

Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.

Rincewind had in any case seen his past life flash in front of his eyes so many times that he could sleep through the boring bits.

He's going to go totally Librarian-poo.

Vimes awoke with a noseful of camel. There are far worse awakenings, but not as many as you might think.

For several years he hadn't moved outside a large, airy room, but this was OK, because he spent most of his time inside his own head in any case. There's a certain type of person it's very hard to imprison.

you cannot apply brakes to a volcano. Sometimes it is best to let these things run their course. They generally die down again after a while.

It's a certainty, but it just might work.

You beat a dozen armed men single-handed? Oh aye, sir, said Wee Mad Arthur slyly, but it was nae fair, I had them outnumbered.

It was eight in the morning, a time when drinkers are trying either to forget who they are or remember where they live.

And no cheating, Lady. he said. But who could cheat Fate? she asked. He shrugged.No-one. Yet everyone tries.

once you have a dream you've got somewhere closer to a reality.

Mort wandered hopelessly along the winding streets. Anyone hovering at rooftop heightwould have noticed a certain pattern in the crowds behind him, suggesting a number of men converging nonchalantly on a target, and would rightly have concluded that Mort and his gold had about the same life expectancy as a three-legged hedgehog on a six-lane motorway.

There had been times, over the past millenium, when he'd felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look, we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there's nothing we can do to them that they don't do to themselves and they do things we've never even though of, often involving electrodes. They've got what we lack. They've got imagination. And electricity, of course.

Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking toward Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People traveled with them.

Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very String Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions?

anger was better than fear. Fear was a damp cold mess, but anger had an edge. She could use it.