Terry Pratchett Quotes

Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.

"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?"

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.

"There were people who called themselves Satanists who made Crowley squirm. It wasn't just the things they did, it was the way they blamed it all on Hell. They'd come up with some stomach-churning idea that no demon could have thought of in a thousand years, some dark and mindless unpleasantness that only a fully-functioning human brain could conceive, then shout "The Devil Made Me Do It" and get the sympathy of the court when the whole point was that the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn't have to. That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn't a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven, in Crowley's opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind."

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.

Never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.

"YOU FEAR TO DIE?
"It's not that I don't want... I mean, I've always...it's just that life is a habit that's hard to break...

Our garden was debated territory between five local cats, and we'd heard that the best way to keep other cats out of the garden was to have one yourself. A moment's rational thought here will spot the slight flaw in this reasoning.

"Whut's the plan, Rob?" said one of them.
"Okay, lads, this is what we'll do. As soon as we see somethin', we'll attack it. Right?"
This caused a cheer.
"Ach, 'tis a good plan," said Daft Wullie.

Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?

Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.

In Reading [England] there is this thing called the IDR, short for "Inner Distribution Road", which is bureaucratese for "Big thing that cost a lot of money and relieves traffic problems, provided all your traffic wants to orbit the town centre permanently". It's a 2-3 lane dual carriageway that goes round the town centre. It has lots of roundabouts, an overhead section, a couple of spare motorway-like exits (that's British motorways -- y'know, the roundabout with the main road going under it), and a thing called the Watlington Street Gyratory, where you have to get in lane for your intended destination about three years and two corners before you get there with no signposting. I used to cycle along it every day to get to school, before I fell off at 35 mph. [Kids! Don't try this at home!] I know it well. I believe it is impossible to leave Reading heading west.

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.

Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.