Quotes from Terry Pratchett

Contrary to popular belief and hope, people don't usually come running when they hear a scream. That's not how humans work. Humans look at other humans and say, 'Did you hear a scream?' because the first scream might have been you screaming inside your head, or a horse backfiring.

Now ... if you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.

Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people, mumbled Sam. Do they? said Vimes. Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it? 'cos they torture people.

Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe,' would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss is about. This made signs rather a waste of time, but at least it meant that when you handed what was left of the wizard to his grieving relatives you could say, as they grasped the jar, 'We told him not to.

Odd thing, ain't it... you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.

The girls were expected to grow up to be somebody's wife. They were also expected to read and write, those being considered soft indoor jobs that were too fiddly for the boys.

Sometimes the only thing you could do for people was to be there.

You are in favour of the common people?" said Dragon mildly. The common people?" said Vimes. "They're nothing special. They're no different from the rich and powerful except they've got no money or power. But the law should be there to balance things up a bit. So I suppose I've got to be on their side.

Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you.

I never said nothing... I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!

But what's worth more than gold? Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren't you worth more than that?

They know that people need witches; they need the unofficial people who understand the difference between right and wrong, and when right is wrong and when wrong is right. The world needs the people who work around the edges. They need the people who can deal with the little bumps and inconveniences. And little problems. After all, we are almost all human. Almost all of the time.

Was that what it was really like to be alive? The feeling of darkness dragging you forward? How could they live with it? And yet they did, and even seemed to find enjoyment in it, when surely the only sensible course would be to despair. Amazing. To feel you were a tiny living thing, sandwiched between two cliffs of darkness. How could they stand to be alive?

People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people.

Raising the flag and singing the anthem are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason.

THERE'S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US.

Last hopeless chances have got to work. Nothing makes sense otherwise. You might as well not be alive.

You'll see! We're going to the palace. Fetch Angua. We might need her. And bring the search warrant. You mean the sledgehammer, sir? Yes.

The universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. There is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.

Lessee...he'd gone off after the funeral and gotten drunk. No, not drunk, another word, ended with er. Drunker. that was it.

Good and bad is tricky, she said. I ain't too certain about where people stand. P'raps what matters is which way you face.

Find the story, Granny Weatherwax always said. She believed that the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you. But if you studied them, if you found out about them... you could use them, you could change them.

Death strode away, stopped, and came back. He pointed a skeletal finger at The Duck Man. WHY, he said, ARE YOU WALKING AROUND WITH THAT DUCK? What duck? AH. SORRY.

He'sh mad? Sort of mad. But mad with lots of money. Ah, then he can't be mad. I've been around; if a man hash lotsh of money he'sh just ecshentric.