Quotes from Terry Pratchett

Despite rumor, Death isn't cruel--merely terribly, terribly good at his job.

Witches were a bit like cats. They didn't much like one another's company, but they did like to know where all the other witches were, just in case they needed them.

The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as Things just happen. What the hell.

An Assassin, a real Assassin, had to look like one - black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?

The turtle moves.

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.

William: I'm sure we can all pull together, sir. Vetinari: Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.

And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got you invited to the very best social occasions.

They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to. This book is dedicated to those fine men.

Bursar? Yes, Archchancellor? You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you? Me? No, Archchancellor. Then it'd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head.

The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.

It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone's mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.

A weapon you held and didn't know how to use belonged to your enemy.

And gears, said Anathema. My bike didn't have gears. I'm sure my bike didn't have gears. Crowley leaned over to the angel. Oh lord, heal this bike, he whispered sarcastically. I'm sorry, I just got carried away, hissed Aziraphale.

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.

Multiple exclamation marks,' he went on, shaking his head, 'are a sure sign of a diseased mind.

Granny was an old-fashioned witch. She didn't do good for people, she did right by them.

It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country, he read. This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.

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

I'm not superstitious. I'm a witch. Witches aren't superstitious. We are what people are superstitious of.

No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence.

People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.

Oh, I feel very angry a lot of the time, said Tiffany, but I just put it away somewhere until I can do something useful with it.