|
b9d7243
|
what people mean to do and what is done are two different things
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
949e987
|
Our skills, you will find, could be our jailers.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1517d13
|
Silence fell like a hammer made of feathers. It left holes in the shape of the sound of the sea.
|
|
hammer
holes
nation
sea
silence
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
92d6b3c
|
The worst part, the part, was that Lord de Worde was never wrong. It was not a position he understood in relation to his personal geography. People who took an opposing view were insane, or dangerous, or possibly even not really people. You couldn't have an argument with Lord de Worde. Not a proper argument. An argument, from , meant to debate and discuss and persuade by reason. What you could have with William's father was a flaming row..
|
|
argument
discussion
politics
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
f17f214
|
Sometimes scientists change their minds. New developments cause a rethink. If this bothers you, consider how much damage is being done to the world by people for whom new developments do not cause a rethink.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
37efe95
|
We were born vampires." "I thought you became -" "-- vampires by being bitten? Dear me, no. Oh, we can turn people into vampires, it's an easy technique, but what would be the point? When you eat... now what is it you eat? Oh yes, chocolate... you don't want to turn it into another Agnes Nitt, do you? Less chocolate to go around." He sighed. "Oh dear, superstition, superstition everywhere we turn."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
935dd76
|
He's a bit set in his ways." "Congealed, I should think."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
7c1304a
|
One of the things that makes folks even more jolly is knowing there're people who ain't.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
10b8dbd
|
Gentlemen, please," said the Patrician. He shook his head. "Let's have no fighting, please. This is, after all, a council of war."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
cab40e7
|
Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
478b65c
|
Dullness. Only humans could have invented it. What imaginations they had.
|
|
imagination
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
ea39643
|
Not long ago I was invited to a librarians' event by a lady who cheerfully told me, "We like to think of ourselves as 'information providers.'" I was appalled by this want of ambition; I made my excuses and didn't go. After all, if you have a choice, why not call yourselves "Shining Acolytes of the Sacred Flame of Literacy in a Dark and Encroaching Universe"? I admit this is hard to put on a button, so why not abbreviate it to "librarians"?..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1a33c59
|
Dwarfs are very attached to gold. Any highwayman demanding 'Your money or your life' had better bring a folding chair and packed lunch and a book to read while the debate goes on.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
2c10421
|
It was, he felt, a persistent flaw in his wife's otherwise practical and sensible character that she believed, against all evidence, that he was a man of many talents. He he had hidden depths. There was nothing in them that he'd like to see float to the surface. They contained things that should be left to lie.
|
|
sam-vimes
the-beast
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
78ad1a1
|
Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You. Kill or Be Killed. Either Shit or Get Out of the Kitchen. Survival of the Fittest. Make My Day.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
7d3d3ff
|
What will you do?" said Susan. "Lie," said Lu-Tze happily. "It's amazing how often that works."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
e6eda0a
|
They sometimes forgot what happened if you let a pawn get all the way up the board.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
2c892f8
|
That was how it worked. No magic at all. But that time it had been magic. And it didn't stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
c543160
|
He wanted to say: how could you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you could do with the peasents was to leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting for those who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open.
|
|
library
reading
ricewind
writing
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
f3f50c0
|
Mort remembered the woodcut in his grandmother's almanack, between the page on planting times and the phases of the moon section, showing Dethe thee Great Levyller Comes To Alle Menne. He'd stared at it hundreds of times when learning his letters. It wouldn't have been half so impressive if it had been generally known that the flame-breathing horse the specter rode was called Binky.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
b5743b0
|
Newt had always suspected that people who regularly used the word "community" were using it in a very specific sense that excluded him and everyone he knew."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a51fd8e
|
In a well-organized world he might have landed on a fire escape, but the fire escapes were unknown in Ankh-Morpork and the flames generally had to leave via the roof.
|
|
humor
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1d380b5
|
Life could be horrible in the wrong trouser of time.
|
|
humor
parallel-universe
time
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
d9a2d34
|
There were actual people in the world whose idea of heaven would be a chocolate cat.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
e8d4839
|
Listen, happy endings is fine if they turn out happy," said Granny, glaring at the sky. "But you can't make 'em for other people. Like the only way you could make a happy marriage is by cuttin' their heads off as soon as they say 'I do', yes? You can't make happiness..." Granny Weatherwax stared at the distant city. "All you can do," she said, "is make an ending."
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
a4d9a76
|
So, instead, I give tips on how to be a professional boxer. A good diet is essential, of course, as is a daily regime of exercise. Pay attention to your footwork, it will often get you into trouble. Go down to the gym every day - every day of your life that finds you waking up capable of standing. Take every opportunity to watch a good professional fight. In fact watch as many bouts as you can, because you can even learn something from the ..
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
2f509e5
|
Theres no stink more sorrorful than the stink of wet, burnt paper. It means: the end.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
14261c6
|
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.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
bcf2303
|
What's magic, eh? Just wavin' a stick an' sayin' a few wee magical words. An' what's so clever aboot that, eh? But lookin' at things, really lookin' at 'em, and then workin' 'em oout, now, that's a real skill.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
fbe0eb9
|
Everybody present laughed nervously, except Lord Vetinari, who just laughed.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
5060585
|
Mistress Weatherwax is the head witch, then, is she?' 'Oh no!' said Miss Level, looking shocked. 'Witches are all equal. We don't have things like head witches. That's quite against the spirit of witchcraft.' 'Oh, I see,' said Tiffany. 'Besides,' Miss Level added, 'Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1555248
|
She felt livid. They'd all lost so many powers. It was ridiculous to have to communicate by flapping bits of your skin, and as for the tongue... Yuerkkk ... As far as she knew, in the whole life of the universe, no Auditor had ever experienced the sensation of yuerkkk. This wretched body was full of opportunities for yuerkkk. She could leave it at any time and yet, and yet... part of her didn't want to. There was this horrible desire, secon..
|
|
internal-organs
stomach
yuerkk
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
d5791a5
|
For the enemy is not Troll, nor it is Dwarf, but it is the baleful, the malign, the cowardly, the vessels of hatred, those who do a bad thing and call it good.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
71a8dec
|
The gods," he said. "Imprisoned in a thought. And perhaps they were never more than a dream."
|
|
thought-dream
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
b7d13b6
|
The point is not to avoid the war, it is to win it.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
e702524
|
Sometimes life reaches that desperate point where the wrong thing to do has to be the right thing to do.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
1d80924
|
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. [...] By the stinking of my nose, something wicked this way goes[.] [...] By the blinking of my eyes, something wicked this way dies.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
fcb3c60
|
down below the mines and sea ooze and fake fossil bones put there by a Creator with nothing better to do than upset archeologists and give them silly ideas.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
d9baf76
|
We spray our fantasies on the landscape like a dog sprays urine. It turns it into ours. Once we've invented our gods and demons, we can propitiate or exorcize them. Once we've put fairies in the sinister solitary thorn tree, we can decide where we stand in relation to it; we can hang ribbons on it, see visions under it--or bulldoze it up and call ourselves free of superstition.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
3998f20
|
My first novel was published by the first publisher I sent it to. And so I've been learning as I go, and I find it now rather embarrassing that people beginning the Discworld series start with The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which I don't think are some of the best books to start with. This is the author saying this, folks. Do not start at the beginning with Discworld.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
cfa06a5
|
It was destined to be the most impressive kiss in the history of foreplay. The kiss lasted more than fifteen years. Not even frogs can manage that.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
742be71
|
Everybody needs a witch, but sometimes they just don't know it.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
9892e21
|
People in chains had a tendency to look guilty.
|
|
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
e361574
|
She taught me so much, she said to herself. She 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.
|
|
granny-aching
|
Terry Pratchett |