Quotes About Existence

Mr Tulip raised a trembling hand. 'Is this the bit where my whole life passes in front of my eyes?' he said. NO, THAT WAS THE BIT JUST NOW. 'Which bit?' THE BIT, said Death, BETWEEN YOUR BEING BORN AND YOUR DYING.

The trouble with gods is that after enough people start believing in them, they begin to exist. And what begins to exist isn't what was originally intended.

No one actually saw it land, which raised the interesting philosophical point: When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, but there is no one to hear it, does it - philosophically speaking - make a noise?

Demons have existed on the Discworld for at least as long as the gods, who in many ways they closely resemble. The difference is basically the same as that between terrorists and freedom fighters.

That's what being alive is, Thing! It's being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing!

It had a very long pendulum, and the pendulum swung with a slow tick-tock that set his teeth on edge, because it was the kind of deliberate annoying ticking that wanted to make it abundantly clear that every tick and every tock was stripping another second off your life. It was the kind of sound that suggested very pointedly that in some hypothetical hourglass somewhere, another few grains of sand had dropped out form under you.

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.

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

The Universe isn't just a light show, they keep it running during the day too.

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.

Gods didn't mind atheists, if they were deep, hot, fiery, atheists like Simony, who spend their whole life hating gods for not existing. That sort of atheism was a rock. It was nearly belief …

Human beings, little bags of thinking water held up briefly by fragile accumulations of calcium...

they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn't have a position in time and space, such as imagination, pity, hope, history, and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot.

Goodbye," Mort said, and was surprised to find a lump in his throat. "It's such an unpleasant word, isn't it?" QUITE SO. Death grinned because, as has so often been remarked, he didn't have much option. But possibly he meant it, this time. I PREFER AU REVOIR, he said.

What was it they said about the gods? They wouldn't exist if there weren't people to believe in them? And that applied to everything. Reality was what went on inside people's heads.

It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing.

All he had was nothing, but that was something, and now it had been taken away.

I THINK PERHAPS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. PEOPLE'S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE PROCESS IS CALLED "LIVING." WOULD YOU LIKE A PRAWN?

either the gods are there whether you believe or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business...

Lots of things have never happened before. We're only born once.

No one knew where you were before you were born, but when you were born, it wasn't long before you found you'd arrived with your return ticket already punched.

Fair?" said the Sea Queen. She moved forward. Om felt her all around him. "There's no such thing," she said. "Life's like a beach. And then you die.

The gods, he said. Imprisoned in a thought. And perhaps they were never more than a dream.

Despite rumor, Death isn't cruel—merely terribly, terribly good at his job.