Quotes from Terry Pratchett

it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.

No' on this raid, Wullie. A'm staying here. I have every confidence that ye'll be a fiiinne leader on this raid an' not totally mess it up like ye did the last seventeen times!

Anyone with half a mind could see that, said Tiffany. Miss Tick sighed. Yes. But sometimes it's so hard to find half a mind when you need one.

But I thought she thought he was just a big pile of jobbies?" he said. "I seen her oout walkin', an' when he comes ridin' past, she sticks her nose in th' air and looks the other wa'. In fact, sometimes I seen her wait aroound a full five-and-twenty minutes for him tae come past, just so's she can do that.

Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course. That was the trick, all right.

You couldn't think about how you thought. It was like opening a box with the crowbar that was inside.

I saw a program. It had David Attenborough, so it's true.

How hard can writing be? After all, most of the words are going to be 'and,' 'the,' and 'I,' and 'it,' and so on, and there's a huge number to choose from, so a lot of the work has been done for you.

This is Holy Wood. To pass the time quickly, you just film the clock hands moving fast...

Tiffany had watched the dead before many times, of course - it was the custom for a departing soul to have company the night before any funeral or burial, as if to make a point to anything that might be... lurking: this person mattered , there is someone here to make sure nothing evil creeps in at this time of danger.

Do teachers go anywhere special when they die?' said Cohen. 'I don't think so,' said Mr Saveloy gloomily. He wondered for a moment whether there really was a great Free Period in the sky. It didn't sound very likely. Probably there would be some marking to do.

When I'm old I shall wear midnight, she'd decided. But, for now, she'd had enough of darkness.

To ther Hed Wizzard, Unsene Universety, Greatings, I hop you ar well, I am sending to you won Escarrina Smith, shee hath thee maekings of wizzardery but whot may be ferther dun wyth hyr I knowe not shee is a gode worker and clene about hyr person allso skilled in diuerse arts of thee howse, I will send Monies wyth hyr May you liv longe and ende youre days in pese, And oblije, Esmerelder Weatherwaxe (Mss) Wytch.

He'd never realized that, deep down inside, what he really wanted to do was make things go splat.

And perhaps at the other end of the world there is a place where the screaming can't be heard, and I may find it in my heart to grant God absolution!

Mind how ye go, hag o' hags. Ye'll be sore missed.

The dark organ music filled the Department of Post-Mortem Communications. Moist assumed it was all part of the ambience, although the mood would have been more precisely obtained if the tune it was playing did not appear to be Cantate and Fugue for someone Who Has Trouble with the Pedals.

The Universe contains everything and nothing. There is very little everything. And more nothing than you can possibly imagine.

Make ourselves attractive to students? said the Archchancellor. Mr Stibbons, the whole idea of a university is that it should be hard to get into.

The barricade was taking some while to dismantle. Chair legs and planks and bedsteads and doors and baulks of timber had settled into a tangled mass. Since every piece belonged to someone, and Ankh-Morpork people care about that sort of thing, it was being dismantled by collective argument.

All it takes is for people to believe and I am no longer just an artefact put together by clever engineers. I am an idea, a something made of nothing, whose time has come to be. Some may even call me Goddess

And precisely because she was a witch, and therefore sensible, she put little faith in protective amulets and spells; she saved it all for a foot-long bread knife which she kept in her belt.

It was the kind of storm that suggests the whole sky has swallowed a diuretic.

Sonata for Thunderstorm, Trapdoors and Young Women in Skimpy Clothing.