Terry Pratchett Quotes

I'm referred to, I see, as 'the biggest banker in modern publishing'. Now there's a line that needed the celebrated Guardian proof-reading.

I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him.

Bognor has always meant to me the quintessential English seaside experience (before all this global warming stuff): driving in the rain to get there, walking around in the rain looking for something to do when you're there, and driving home in the rain again...

I was thinking of 'duh?' in the sense of 'a sentence containing several words more than three letters long, and possibly requiring general knowledge or a sense of history that extends past last Tuesday, has been used in my presence.'

"Out of Print" is bookseller speak for "We can't be hedgehogged".

I didn't go to university. Didn't even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.

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.

I staggered into a Manchester bar late one night on a tour and the waitress said "You look as if you need a Screaming Orgasm". At the time this was the last thing on my mind...

What you have here is an example of that well known phenomenon, A Bookshop Assistant Who Knows Buggerall But Won't Admit It (probably some kind of arts graduate).

I have to admit that I drive past Bridgwater quite regularly. And fast.

I think that sick people in Ankh-Morpork generally go to a vet. It's generally a better bet. There's more pressure on a vet to get it right. People say "it was god's will" when granny dies, but they get angry when they lose a cow.

I mean, I wouldn't pay more than a couple of quid to see me, and I'm me.

A true beanie should have a propellor on the top.

You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, traveling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abcesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say 'yes'.

What your soldier wants -- really, really wants -- is no-one shooting back at him.