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'm a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there's very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in 'I Shall Wear Midnight,' which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they're practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap...

Terry Pratchett

I think it does Discworld good if I don't write about it all the time: sometimes you have to get it out of your system.

Terry Pratchett

I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.

Terry Pratchett

'Nation' was one that I'd have killed myself if I hadn't written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul.

Terry Pratchett

I'm not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We're not 'celebrities', whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They're what people meet.

Terry Pratchett

The 'New Testament', now, I quite liked. Jesus had a lot of good things to say, and as for his father, he must have been highly thought of by the community to work with wood - a material that couldn't have been widely available in Palestine.

Terry Pratchett

I think I would like to go into modelling. Of course, I don't know how to do it, and wouldn't be any good at it if I did, so I'm going to employ someone to walk the catwalks on my behalf. It would still be me, of course.

Terry Pratchett

The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.

Terry Pratchett

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

Terry Pratchett

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Terry Pratchett

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.

Terry Pratchett

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

Terry Pratchett

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

Terry Pratchett

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

Terry Pratchett

I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

Terry Pratchett

In all seriousness, people think that it's the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thous...

Terry Pratchett

By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

Terry Pratchett

My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approx...

Terry Pratchett

No one's policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

Terry Pratchett

I read the 'Old Testament' all the way through when I was about 13 and was horrified. A few months afterwards I read 'The Origin Of Species', hallucinating very mildly because I was in bed with flu at the time. Despite that, or because of that, it al...

Terry Pratchett

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.

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