Terry Pratchett quote: "The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it <i>never</i> added the rider 'and that someone is me'."

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

In all seriousness, people think that it's the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has idea...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect t...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Open your eyes and then open your eyes again.
TERRY PRATCHETT

A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.
TERRY PRATCHETT

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money....
TERRY PRATCHETT

Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, becaus...
TERRY PRATCHETT

She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite th...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.
TERRY PRATCHETT

It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are t...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I don't want unnecessary violence, sergeant," said Blouse.
"Right you are, sir!" said the serge...
TERRY PRATCHETT

This is Art holding a Mirror up to Life. That’s why everything is exactly the wrong way around.
TERRY PRATCHETT

I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brand...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no la...
TERRY PRATCHETT

They stole from rich merchants and temples and kings. They didn't steal from poor people; this was n...
TERRY PRATCHETT

William: "I'm sure we can all pull together, sir."
Vetinari: "Oh, I do hope not. Pulling togeth...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identif...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?" TERRY PRATCHETT

If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's wha...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The place where the story happened was a world on the back of four elephants perched on the s...
TERRY PRATCHETT

If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still g...
TERRY PRATCHETT

If you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and tryi...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Do you think it's possible for an entire nation to be insane?
TERRY PRATCHETT

Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?
TERRY PRATCHETT

It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of goi...
TERRY PRATCHETT

If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunders...
TERRY PRATCHETT

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It's a terrible thing for a man when his woman gangs up on him wi' a toad
TERRY PRATCHETT

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which migh...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it f...
TERRY PRATCHETT

All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE...
TERRY PRATCHETT

There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach sma...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."
Vetinari looked at his secretary in surp...
TERRY PRATCHETT

[And there was the matter of Dick Turpin. It looked like the same car, except that forever afterward...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still aliv...
TERRY PRATCHETT

You can't map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Drag...
TERRY PRATCHETT

A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused a...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Witches are naturally nosy,” said Miss Tick, standing up. “Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any th...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are mi...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It's still magic even if you know how it's done.
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 ...
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 whe...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally goo...
TERRY PRATCHETT

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented w...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I meant, said Ipslore bitterly, what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while? Dea...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
TERRY PRATCHETT

It's not enough to be able to pick up a sword. You have to know which end to poke into the enemy.
TERRY PRATCHETT

’I'd have you lot up in front of the University authorities first thing in the morning, if it wasn...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces
TERRY PRATCHETT

It's lies. It's all lies. Some of them are just prettier than others, that's all. People see what th...
TERRY PRATCHETT

One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than...
TERRY PRATCHETT

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

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.
TERRY PRATCHETT

This book had two authors, and they were both the same person.
TERRY PRATCHETT

If you don't know when to be a human being, you don't know when to be a witch.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.
TERRY PRATCHETT

...inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
TERRY PRATCHETT

We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.
TERRY PRATCHETT

His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans --...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
TERRY PRATCHETT

DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.
TERRY PRATCHETT

It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Li...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his lif...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—species...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look alon...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the mus...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.
TERRY PRATCHETT

To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don't worry about the darknes...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Famous I don't know about. It's hard to be famous and alive. I just want to play music every day and...
TERRY PRATCHETT

No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and hom...
TERRY PRATCHETT

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"<...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended....
TERRY PRATCHETT

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is grow...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I must have read every issue of 'Punch' published in the 20th century, and I think in the pr...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.
TERRY PRATCHETT

There was once a caustic comment from someone suggesting I was breeding a new race. Fans from differ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Al...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases - one was Alzheimer's, and th...
TERRY PRATCHETT

By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has h...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.
TERRY PRATCHETT

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that&#...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
TERRY PRATCHETT

You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a m...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence o...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.
TERRY PRATCHETT

It's useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.
TERRY PRATCHETT

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

It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would muc...
TERRY PRATCHETT

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

The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out til too late that he's be...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
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 th...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wron...
TERRY PRATCHETT

If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged
TERRY PRATCHETT

Unseen University was much bigger on the inside. Thousands of years as the leading establishment of ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kiddin...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood ha...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Siren voices tell me, 'You don't have to keep going on.' And then you think, 'I'...
TERRY PRATCHETT

We're living in science fiction, but we don't realize it.
TERRY PRATCHETT

She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?"
Mort thought for...
TERRY PRATCHETT

He's bound to have done something,” Nobby repeated.

In this he was echoing the P...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Sometimes the crime follows the punishment, which only serves to prove the foresight of the Great Go...
TERRY PRATCHETT

'Educational' refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained...
TERRY PRATCHETT

No more words. We know them all, all the words that should not be said. But you have made my world m...
TERRY PRATCHETT

And what would humans be without love?"
RARE, said Death.
TERRY PRATCHETT

That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all is trut...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree. But people have always been dimly awar...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The living often don’t appreciate how complicated the world looks when you are dead, because while...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Hello, inner child, I'm the inner babysitter!
TERRY PRATCHETT

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The baby boomers are getting older, and will stay older for longer. And they will run right into the...
TERRY PRATCHETT

We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I regarded finding I had a form of Alzheimer's as an insult and decided to do my best to marshal...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising a...
TERRY PRATCHETT

My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 ye...
TERRY PRATCHETT

You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know tha...
TERRY PRATCHETT

He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouti...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It&#...
TERRY PRATCHETT

My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage...
TERRY PRATCHETT

And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Everybody has somebody. It could be a friend, a lover, a spouse, a writing partner, or even That One...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You'r...
TERRY PRATCHETT

But what's worth more than gold?"

"Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heav...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Gnomes live ten times faster than humans. They're harder to see than a high-speed mouse. That's on...
TERRY PRATCHETT

She walked quickly through the darkness with the frank stride of someone who was at least certain th...
TERRY PRATCHETT

My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage...
TERRY PRATCHETT

There was this about vampires : they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were... what was the wo...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Of course I'm sane, when trees start talking to me, I don't talk back.
TERRY PRATCHETT

The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Ginger: You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?... It's all the people who never f...
TERRY PRATCHETT

There's a door."
"Where does it go?"
"It stays where it is, I think.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen...
TERRY PRATCHETT

No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The enemy isn't men, or women, it's bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid.
TERRY PRATCHETT

In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who t...
TERRY PRATCHETT

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said i...
TERRY PRATCHETT

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
TERRY PRATCHETT

No one's policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a w...
TERRY PRATCHETT

At such times the universe gets a little closer to us. They are strange times, times of beginnings a...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.
TERRY PRATCHETT

I saved a man's life once," said Granny. "Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valle...
TERRY PRATCHETT

She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability wh...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.
TERRY PRATCHETT

The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes af...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I'm fortunate; I ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It was one of those problematic occasions with long silences, sporadic coughs, and people saying iso...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: 'Or Would You Rather Be ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.Elves are fantasti...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when yo...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves ar...
TERRY PRATCHETT

"Why does everyone run toward a blood curdling scream?" mumbled the Senior Wrangler. "It is contrary...
TERRY PRATCHETT

A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Sham Harga had run a succesful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence coul...
TERRY PRATCHETT

An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then...
TERRY PRATCHETT

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) ...
TERRY PRATCHETT

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 l...
TERRY PRATCHETT

In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
TERRY PRATCHETT

Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.
TERRY PRATCHETT

The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.
TERRY PRATCHETT

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which migh...
TERRY PRATCHETT

The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider 'and that someone is me'.

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Terry Pratchett

The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider 'and that someone is me'.

Terry Pratchett

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