Quotes from Terry Pratchett

Something began when the Guild of Assassins enrolled Mister Teatime, who saw things differently from other people, and one of the ways that he saw things differently from other people was in seeing other people as things (later, Lord Downey of the Guild said, "We took pity on him because he'd lost both parents at an early age. I think that, on reflection, we should have wondered a bit more about that").

had decided what to do, which was to smile like the morning sun with a knife in its teeth.

There was no himself in himself.

But most of all in the last couple of years I have been listening. As a journalist, I learned to listen. It is amazing how much people will tell you if you listen in the right way. Rob, my PA, says that I can listen like a vacuum cleaner. Always beware of somebody who is a really good listener.

Why are you always in such a hurry, Mr. Lipwig?" "Because people don't like change. But make the change happen fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.

D'yer see it? This finger, laddie, could send ye to meet yer Maker!" Sgt. Deisenburger stared at the black and purple nail a few inches from his face. As an offensive weapon it rated quite highly, especially if it was ever used in the preparation of food.

The Great God Om waxed wroth, or at least made a spirited attempt. There is a limit to the amount of wroth that can be waxed one inch from the ground, and he was right up against it.

Nanny just tended to put a hot poultice on everything and recommend a large glass of whatever the patient liked best on the basis that since you were going to be ill anyway you might as well get some enjoyment out of it.

Some of the men and older boys were trained in firing the cannon, but since there wasn't any gun powder to spare for actually firing any more of the things, they made do with pushing wooden cartridges into the barrel and shouting, "Bang!" They got quite good at that, and were proud at the speed with which "Bang!" could be shouted. Daphne said she hoped the enemy would be trained to say "Aargh!

Silverfish: He disappeared a few years ago. Disappeared? How? said Cuddy. We think, said Silverfish, leaning closer, that he found a way of making himself invisible. Really? Because, said Silverfish, nodding conspiratorially, no-one has seen him.

The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to.

And he had so many nervous tics that they had to queue.

Having to haul around extra poundage was far too much effort, so he saw to it that he never put it on and he kept himself in trim because doing things with decent muscles was far less effort than trying to achieve things with bags of flab.

one of the symptoms of those going completely yo-yo was that they broke out in chronic cats.

The Lawyers of Fate demand a loophole in every prophecy.

Lord Vetinari lifted an eyebrow with the care of one who, having found a piece of caterpillar in his salad, raises the rest of the lettuce.

Why? Why not do things differently? Why should we do things how they have always been done before? And something inside her suddenly thrilled to the challenge.

There was always something that you had to do before you could do the thing you wanted to do and even then you might get it wrong.

That's what prayers are... it's frightened people trying to make friends with the bully!

Perhaps there is something in this reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits? It was a cumbersome phrase. Rincewind tried to get his tongue around the thick syllables that were the word in Twoflower's own language. Ecolirix? he tried. Ecro-gnothics? Echo-gnomics? That would do. That sounded about right.

Captain Quirke looked around the Watch room with the air of one who was doing the scenery a favour by looking at it.

One such accident had turned the librarian into an ape, since when he had resisted all attempts to turn him back, explaining in sign language that life as an orangutan was considerably better than life as a human being, because all the big philosophical questions resolved themselves into wondering where the next banana was coming from. Anyway, long arms and prehensile feet were ideal for dealing with high shelves.

They writes some bits o' their letters in them wee codies. That's a terrible thing tae do to a reader. It's hard enough readin' the normal words, wi'oot somebody jumblin' them all up.

She taught me so much, she said to herself. She built me as we were walking around after the sheep, and she told me all those things that I needed to know, and the first thing was to look after people. Of course, the other thing had been to look after the sheep.