Quotes About Fantasy

Rincewind tried shutting his eyes, but there were no eyelids to his imagination and it was staring widely

I thought dwarfs loved gold, said Angua. They just say that to get it into bed.

Not much call for a barbarian hairdresser, I expect,' said Rincewind. 'I mean, no-one wants a shampoo-and-beheading.

And the Nac Mac Feegle are, well, they're like tiny little Scottish Smurfs who have seen Braveheart altogether too many times.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown.

Don't be ridiculous, man, said Ridcully, there's no such thing as dwarf smuggling. Yeah? Then what's that you've got there? I'm a giant, said Casanunda. Giants are a lot bigger. I've been ill.

A unicorn is nothing more than a big horse that comes to a point, anyway. Nothing to get so excited about.

There were actual people in the world whose idea of heaven would be a chocolate cat.

And he read Principles of Accounting all morning, but just to make it interesting, he put lots of dragons in it.

Of course fantasy is escapist. Most stories are. So what? Teachers are not meant to be jailers.

You know, I never imagined there were he-dryads. Not even in an oak tree. One of the giants grinned at him. Druellae snorted. Stupid! Where do you think acorns come from?

She was never likely to say out loud, "I wish that I could marry a handsome prince," but knowing that if you did you'd probably open the door to find a stunned prince, a tied-up priest, and a Nac Mac Feegle grinning cheerfully and ready to act as best man definitely made you watch what you said.

REMIND ME AGAIN, he said, HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE.

But all them things exist, said Nanny Ogg. That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.

Fairyland, where dreams can hurt. Somewhere all stories are real, all songs are true. I thought that was a strange thing for the kelda to say. . . .

You don't understand!" screamed the tourist, above the terrible noise of the wingbeats. "All my life I've wanted to see dragons!" "From the inside?" shouted Rincewind. "Shut up and ride!

An imagination is a terrible thing to bring along.

Where do you get your fantastic ideas from? You steal them. You steal them from reality. It outstrips fantasy most the time.

I get depressed with these fluffy dragons and noble elves. Elves were never noble. They were cruel bastards. And I dislike heroes. You can't trust the buggers. They always let you down. I don't believe in the natural nobility of kings, because a large percentage of them in our history have turned out to be power-crazed idiots. And I certainly don't believe in the wisdom of wizards. I've worked with their modern equivalents, and I know what I'm talking about.

To ther Hed Wizzard, Unsene Universety, Greatings, I hop you ar well, I am sending to you won Escarrina Smith, shee hath thee maekings of wizzardery but whot may be ferther dun wyth hyr I knowe not shee is a gode worker and clene about hyr person allso skilled in diuerse arts of thee howse, I will send Monies wyth hyr May you liv longe and ende youre days in pese, And oblije, Esmerelder Weatherwaxe (Mss) Wytch.

Scuse me, 'scuse me," said a voice from beside him. He looked down this time at a dirty, half-scorched cat, who grinned at him. "Did that cat just speak?" asked the mayor. Maurice looked around. "Which one?" he said. "You! Did you just talk?" "Would you feel better if I said no?" said Maurice.

The Feegles believe that they are dead. This world is so nice, they argue, that they must have been really good in a past life and then died and ended up here. Appearing to die here means merely going back to the Last World, which they believe is rather dull.

You're not suggesting that Vetinari tucks into a nice rat every day? said Angua. I've heard he uses rats as spies, so I don't think he'd use them as elevenses, said Carrot.

There are now, to the delight of parasitical writers like me, what I might almost call "public domain" plot items. There are dragons, and magic users, and far horizons, and quests, and items of power, and weird cities. There's the kind of scenery that we would have had on earth if only God had had the money.