Quotes About Influence

Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.

Well, you know Esme. She wasn't one for that kind of thing - never one to push herself forward* * She hadn't ever needed to. Granny Weatherwax was like the prow of a ship. Seas parted when she turned up.

Creators aren't gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It's men that make gods. This explains a lot.

The problem with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and putting things in it.

Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again. It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: Kings. What a good idea. Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.

Money makes people rich; it is a fallacy to think it makes them better, or even that it makes them worse. People are what they do, and what they leave behind.

All things are defined by names. Change the name, and you change the thing.

Then Carrot said, It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness, captain. That's what they say. What? Vimes' sudden rage was like a thunderclap. Who says that? When has that ever been true? It's never been true! It's the kind of thing people without power say to make it all seem less bloody awful, but it's just words, it never makes any difference -

Words have always had the power to change the world.

Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned.

Why not? If enough people believe, you can be god of anything…

Bandits and governments 'ave so much in common that they might be interchangeable anywhere in the world...

Words are the litmus paper of the minds. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word commence in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say Enter, don't stop to pack.

Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum. When you have their full attention in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow.

Our rulers rule by consent, which means that we like having them as rulers, if they do what we want them to do.

no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.

The last thing she wanted was to see her friend getting ideas in her head. There was such a lot of room in there for them to bounce around and do damage.

Once you gave a thing a name you gave it a life.

In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.

This is called the theory of narrative causality and it means that a story, once started, takes a shape. It picks up all the vibrations of all the other workings of that story that have ever been.

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.

And I'm made up of everyone I've ever met who's changed the way I think. So who is me?

Writing stays. It fastens words down. A man can speak his mind and some nasty wee scuggan will write it down and who knows what he'll do with those words? Ye might as weel nail a man's shadow tae the wall!

Some people are born to command. Some people achieve command. And others have command thrust upon them ...