Quotes from Terry Pratchett

But magic has a habit of lying low, like a rake in the grass.

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.

One of the advantages of a life much longer than average was that you saw how fragile the future was. Men said things like peace in our time or an empire that will last a thousand years, and less than half a lifetime later no one even remembered who they were, let alone what they had said or where the mob had buried their ashes. What changed history were smaller things. Often a few strokes of the pen would do the trick.

Nothing about him looked particularly demonic, at least by classical standards. No horns, no wings. Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queen tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.

He believed in rational thinking and scientific inquiry, which was why he never won an argument with his mother, who believed in people doing what she told them, and believed it with a rock-hard certainty which dismissed all opposition.

One minute walking along, the next minute dead. Why? THINK OF IT BEING MORE... DIMENSIONALLY DISADVANTAGED. Yes. I know. Beano relaxed, and stopped wondering too much about events in an increasingly irrelevant world. Death found that people often did, after the initial confusion. After all, the worst had already happened. At least... with any luck.

and had a face like a bulldog licking vinegar off a thistle...

it wasn't the wearing of the hat that counted so much as having one to wear. Every trade, every craft had its hat.

Tiffany was not afraid of heights at all.  She could walk past tall trees without batting an eyelid.  Looking up at huge towering mountains didn't bother her a bit. What she was afraid of, although she hadn't realized it up until this point, was depths.

No. There's a billion places like home. But only one of 'em's where you live.

WHERE DOES THIS TRAVESTY TAKE PLACE? HO. HO. HO. Albert gave up. "Well, Crumley's in The Maul, for one. Very popular, the Hogfather Grotto. They always have a good Hogfather, apparently." LET'S GET THERE AND SLEIGH THEM. HO. HO. HO. "Right you are, master." THAT WAS A PUNE OR PLAY ON WORDS, ALBERT. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU NOTICED. "I'm laughing like hell deep down, sir." HO. HO. HO.

Many worlds are iron, at the core. But the Discworld is as coreless as a pancake. On the Disc, if you enchant a needle it will point to the Hub, where the magical field is strongest. It's simple. Elsewhere, on worlds designed with less imagination, the needle turns because of the love of iron.

Miss Treason! Remember you have an appointment! It wasn't the best thing to say, but a lot better than: You said you were going to die in about five minutes' time!

But he found he rather liked Shadwell. People often did, much to Shadwell's annoyance. The Rajits liked him because he always eventually paid his rent and didn't cause any trouble, and was racist in such a glowering, undirected way that it was quite inoffensive; it was simply that Shadwell hated everyone in the world, regardless of caste, color, or creed, and wasn't going to make any exceptions for anyone. Madame

How can you be the good guys if you're dropping clever bombs right down people's chimneys? And blowing people up just because they're being bossed around by a loony?

It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing.

And this 'rebooting' business? Give it a good kicking, do you?" "Oh, no, of course, we…that is…well, yes, in fact," said Ponder. "Adrian goes round the back and…er…prods it with his foot. But in a technical way," he added.

But, it was a funny thing: every day something happened that was important enough to be on the front page of the newspaper. She'd never bought it and seen a little sign that said 'Not much happened yesterday, sorry about that'.

Live in dreams for too long and ye go mad—ye can never wake up prop'ly, ye can never get the hang o' reality again.

Commander Vimes always says that when life hands you a mess of spaghetti, you just keep pulling until you find a meatball.

Cohen looked at the forest of lances and pennants. Hundreds of thousands of men looked like quite a lot of men when you saw them close to. I suppose, he said, slowly, that none of you has got some amazing plan you've been keeping quiet about? We thought you had one, said Truckle.

I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people

He was stupid, yes, in the particular way that very clever people can be stupid.

He got down easily by dropping uncontrollably from branch to branch until he landed on his head in a pile of pine needles, where he lay gasping for breath and wishing he'd been a better person.