Great Terry Pratchett quotes

[Brian G Turner]

A few articles doing the rounds in the papers - the Guardian does a nice short, one:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/mar/12/terry-pratchett-in-quotes-15-of-the-best

...but Goodreads is much more comprehensive:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1654.Terry_Pratchett

My favourite one possibly comes near the end of the Hogfather:

- - - - - - - - -

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

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I aren't dead.

Because it's always good to remember things can be worse.

 

[Allegra]

one of my many favs:

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.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

My absolute favourite Pratchett quote too.

 

[Narkalui]

But Mr Vimes'll go spare!

Billy Scuggins is a Brass Stud.

Feet of Clay for those not too familiar...

Not my favourites but the best I could remember off the top of my head.

 

[Cascade]

T o reveal too much about myself, I work as a family/ divorce lawyer. I spend a lot of time negotiating where there is a perceived imbalance of power. I have used a version of the below (from Small Gods, on many occasions)

XVII. You Can't Use Weakness As A Weapon.

"It's the only one I've got."

XVIII. Why Should I Yield Then.

"Not yield. Bargain. Deal with me in weakness. Or one day you'll have to bargain with someone in a position of strength. The World Changes."

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

The revolutionaries' slogan in Night Watch: "Truth, Justice, Reasonably-Priced Love and a Hard Boiled Egg".

 

[Narkalui]

Is this a dagger I see before me?

Er no. It's actually a handkerchief. It might look the same from a distance but up close its got less sharp bits.

Wyrd Sisters. Legendary.

 

[Judderman]

RIP Terry Pratchett. An amazing author who gave me hundreds of enjoyable reading hours.
I loved the way he portayed the common folk like the beggars and CMOT Dibbler.

From Hogfather:
The wassailers stopped and watched them in horror.

People have always had the urge to sing and clang things at the dark stub of the year, when all sorts of psychic nastiness has taken advantage of the long grey days and the deep shadows to lurk and breed. Lately people had taken to singing harmoniously, which rather lost the affect. Those who really understood just clanged something and shouted.

The beggars were not in fact this well versed in folkloric practice. They were just making a din in the well-founded hope that people would give them money to stop.

It was just possible to make out consensus song in there somewhere.

"Hogswatch is coming,

The pig is getting fat,

Please put a dollar in the old man's hat

If you ain't got a dollar a penny will do-"

"And if you ain't got a penny," Foul Ole Ron yodeled, solo, 'Then- fghfgh yffg mfmfmf..." The Duck man had, with great Presence of mind, clamped a hand over Ron's mouth.”

 

[Alex The G and T]

"... the kind of a man who would stand on a mountaintop during a lightning storm in wet copper armor shouting, 'All gods are bastards'"

 

[Culhwch]

So many good ones, but I think my favourite is this one from Sourcery:

“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. ​

 

[BigBadBob141]

Can't remember which book it's in but I love his definition of flying.
"Flying is the art of throwing yourself at the ground and MISSING!"

 

[Ray McCarthy]

@BigBadBob141
I thought that was Douglas Adams in Hitch-hiker series.

 

[BigBadBob141]

You could be right, but I could have sworn it was Pratchett?

 

[Narkalui]

Can someone please help?

I need to know the correct quotation and the name of the book it come from. The quotation goes a little like this: "It is a complete myth that the inventors of weapons get killed by their inventions. Colonel Shrapnel was not blown up, General Gatling was not shot and Henry Cosh died peacefully in bed. If it hadn't been for Sir George Blunt Instrument being being beaten to death in an alley the rumour would never have started."

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Monstrous Regiment is the 31st novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

Though honestly I don't remember that actual line. But it has all the items named after officers.
Such as Lt. Blouse

 

[The Ace]

Can someone please help?

I need to know the correct quotation and the name of the book it come from. The quotation goes a little like this: "It is a complete myth that the inventors of weapons get killed by their inventions. Colonel Shrapnel was not blown up, General Gatling was not shot and Henry Cosh died peacefully in bed. If it hadn't been for Sir George Blunt Instrument being being beaten to death in an alley the rumour would never have started."

It's, "Cosh and blackjack maker Sir William Blunt-Instrument," - Feet of Clay (footnote).

The Quote about flying is, indeed, from Douglas Adams' The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I think from Life, the Universe and Everything.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

OK, probably Feet of Clay is correct and I'm wrong.

 

[BigBadBob141]

REF: The Ace.
I stand corrected!!!

 

[Montero]

I've always been fond of the description of Sgt Colon near the start of Guards, Guards, which goes something like
"Fred Colon had a breastplate with all the pectoral muscles beaten into it. Fred Colon fitted it like a jelly fits its mould"

Not to mention Lady Sybil inspecting the night watch and at the end of it they felt "quite bucked up, which was only a few letters of the alphabet from how they usually felt."