Why I love Terry Pratchett

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."
— Terry Pratchett (Diggers)

"Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."
— Terry Pratchett (Thief of Time)

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life."
— Terry Pratchett (Jingo)

"It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life."
— Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent)

"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember."
— Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies)

"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one."
— Terry Pratchett

"In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this."
— Terry Pratchett

"It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it."

"Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you."
— Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it."
— Terry Pratchett

"In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded."
— Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies)

"Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom."
— Terry Pratchett

"No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled.
"Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?"
"What?"
"Oh, you'd like something simpler?"
— Terry Pratchett (Night Watch)

"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time."
— Terry Pratchett (Hogfather)

"Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind."
— Terry Pratchett (Reaper Man)

"Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving."
— Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky)

"If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you."
— Terry Pratchett


"A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read."
— Terry Pratchett (Guards! Guards!)

"Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken."
— Terry Pratchett (Eric)

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it.
"Cats," he said eventually. "Cats are nice."
— Terry Pratchett (Sourcery)

"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?"
— Terry Pratchett

"I'd rather be a climbing ape than a falling angel."
— Terry Pratchett

"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving."
— Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky)

"There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."
— Terry Pratchett

"DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH."
— Terry Pratchett (Good Omens)

"And what would humans be without love?"
"Rare," said Death."
— Terry Pratchett (Sourcery)

"The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues."
— Terry Pratchett (Moving Pictures)

"He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower."
— Terry Pratchett (Mort)

"His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, 'You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink."
— Terry Pratchett (Small Gods)

"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."
— Terry Pratchett (Reaper Man)

"She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you."
— Terry Pratchett (Equal Rites)

"If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!"
— Terry Pratchett (The Color of Magic)

"This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic."
— Terry Pratchett

"Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon..."
— Terry Pratchett

"Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong."
— Terry Pratchett

"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide."
— Terry Pratchett (Good Omens)

"Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual."
— Terry Pratchett (Jingo)

"The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it."
— Terry Pratchett (Monstrous Regiment)

"Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized."
— Terry Pratchett (Interesting Times)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who's been pinching my beer?
And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye. "
— Terry Pratchett (The Truth)

"We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything."
— Terry Pratchett (Night Watch)

"I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on the covers... this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted."
— Terry Pratchett

"The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned by no later than the date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality."
— Terry Pratchett (Guards! Guards!)

"Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad."
— Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies)

"Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother."
— Terry Pratchett (Reaper Man)

"It's still magic even if you know how it's done."
— Terry Pratchett (A Hat Full of Sky)

"Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?"
Mort thought for a moment.
"No," he said eventually, "what?"
There was silence.
Then Albert straightened up and said, "Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right."
— Terry Pratchett (Mort)

"Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?"
— Terry Pratchett (Going Postal)

"Insanity is catching."
— Terry Pratchett (Making Money)

"Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs."
- Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters)

I love him for this reason

"He stared down at the golden curls of the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.
"You know," he concluded, after a while, "I think he actually looks like an Adam."