Quotes by Terry Pratchett

About Terry Pratchett:

Sir Terence David John is best known for his Discworld series of about 40 volumes. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971, and since his first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, he wrote two books a year on average. His 2011 Discworld novel Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-readership novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I know it’s not the right thing to say to a lady, miss, but you are sweating like a pig!" "My mother always said that horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies merely glow…" "Is that so? Well, miss, you are glowing like a pig!

Terry Pratchett

If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.

Terry Pratchett

Preston, I don't think this creature could ever find its way into your head. Quite apart from anything else, it seems pretty crowded and complicated to me.

Terry Pratchett

Well, child? Aren't you going to try to turn me into some kind of unspeakable creature? I don't think I shall bother, madam, seeing as you are making such a good job of it yourself!

Terry Pratchett

One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble.

Terry Pratchett

I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people.

Terry Pratchett

At such times the universe gets a little closer to us. They are strange times, times of beginnings and endings. Dangerous and powerful. And we feel it even if we don't know what it is. These times are not necessarily good, and not necessarily bad. In...

Terry Pratchett

She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their shoes, which did not make a whole lot of sense, because probably AFTER you had walked a mile in their shoes, you would understand that they were chasi...

Terry Pratchett

I’m a witch. It’s what we do. When it’s nobody else’s business, it’s my business.

Terry Pratchett

Good so be would you if, duff plum of helping second A," said the Bursar. The table fell silent. "Did anyone understand that?" said Ridcully. The Bursar was not technically insane. He had passed through the rapids of insanity som time previously, and...

Terry Pratchett

Your wife is a big hippo! My face is melting! My face is meltinnnnggg!

Terry Pratchett

Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.

Terry Pratchett

Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's ...

Terry Pratchett

The Empire's got something worse than whips all right. It's got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different.

Terry Pratchett

You're not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more," said Yo-less. "It's speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons.

Terry Pratchett

Cards and boards, [Johnny] thought. And the dead. That's not dark forces. Making a fuss about cards and heavy metal and going on about Dungeons and Dragons stuff because it's got demon gods in it is like guarding to door when is really coming up thro...

Terry Pratchett

Of all the forces in the universe, the hardest to overcome is the force of habit.

Terry Pratchett

When you're bouncing around from pin to pin, it is probably very difficult to know that outside the game there's a room and outside the room there's a town and outside the town there's a country and outside the country there's a world and outside the...

Terry Pratchett

You'll get into dreadful trouble and it won't be my fault. You are bad people.

Terry Pratchett

Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo.

Terry Pratchett

It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.

Terry Pratchett

Author Bio

  • NameTerry Pratchett
  • DescriptionEnglish author
  • AliasesTerence David John "Terry" Pratchett; Terence David John Pratchett; Sir Terry Pratchett
  • BornApril 28, 1948
  • DiedMarch 12, 2015
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist; Journalist
  • WorksGood Omens; Nation
  • AwardsOfficer Of The Order Of The British Empire; Margaret Edwards Award; Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize