# Amazing bits of Pratchett **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 11, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910 "2013-01-11T22:36:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/21 "2013-01-12T15:10:44Z")
A few more from _Thief of Time_: “Rules are there to make you _think_ before you break them.” “The wise man does not seek enlightenment, he waits for it. While waiting, I thought it might be fun so seek perplexity instead.” “At the end of the day someone has to be there to tip the wee out of the shoes.” ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/22 "2013-01-12T20:10:26Z")
“in the beginning there was nothing…which exploded” ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/23 "2013-01-12T20:12:39Z")
> [@iftheresaway](#): > > This bit, from _Thief of Time_, has been on my Facebook profile for a while: > “Jeremy tried to be an interesting person. The trouble was that he was the kind of person who, having decided to be an interesting person, would first of all try to find a book called ‘How to be an Interesting Person’ and then see whether there were any courses available.” That one always makes me cringe. It hits just a little too close to the skin… ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/24 "2013-01-12T20:44:24Z")
Bishops move diagonally. That’s why they often turn up where kings don’t expect them. ---
**Author:** ![Hentzau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df788c/32.png) [@Hentzau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentzau)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/25 "2013-01-12T21:02:04Z")
From “Lords and Ladies,” “Heartless it may be, but headless it ain’t.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/26 "2013-01-12T22:45:32Z")
The first thing that Tak wrote, He wrote Himself. The second thing that Tak wrote, He wrote the Law. The third thing that Tak wrote, he wrote the world. The fourth thing that Tak wrote, he wrote a cave. The fifth thing that Tak wrote, he wrote a geode, an egg of stone. ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/27 "2013-01-12T23:26:01Z")
> [@Reaper Man](#): > > “No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…” He’s caused his fair share of ripples. ---
**Author:** ![\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/eada6e/32.png) [@\_Undecided\_Adrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Undecided_Adrian)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/28 "2013-01-12T23:41:46Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Oh. I’m now not thinking about a specific quote, but Night Watch is my favourite Pratchett novel. When Vimes realizes who he is in the story, and goes ahead anyway. I have rarely read as powerful a story about courage as that. [QUOTE=Night Watch] He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew… then it was too high. [/QUOTE] _Night Watch_ is so amazing. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/29 "2013-01-13T09:57:11Z")
“We heard a song — it went ‘Twinkle twinkle little star…’ What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children!” _A Hat Full of Sky_. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/30 "2013-01-13T11:46:29Z")
From _The Truth_: > [@](#): > > 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! ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/31 "2013-01-13T14:11:55Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > 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! I like the part that comes after that even more: > [@The Truth](#): > > 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. ” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/32 "2013-01-13T18:45:34Z")
“He [Twoflowers] started it,” Rincewind said simply. Bravd and Weasel looked at the figure, now hopping across the road with one foot in a stirrup. “Fire-raiser, is he?” said Bravd at last. “No,” said Rincewind. “Not precisely. Let’s just say that 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.’ Got any food?” – _The Colour of Magic_ ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/33 "2013-01-13T19:29:51Z")
You can find four whole pages of Pratchett on Wikiquote: [Discworld quotes.](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Discworld) [_Good Omens_ quotes.](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Good_Omens) [_Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather_ (TV adaptation) quotes.](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett%27s_Hogfather) [Other quotes (including quotes from other novels, Usenet posts, and interviews).](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett) From the latter: > [@](#): > > Imagination, not intelligence, made us human. > [@](#): > > In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this. > [@](#): > > As they say in Discworld, we are trying to unravel the Mighty Infinite using a language which was designed to tell one another where the fresh fruit was. > [@](#): > > Oh dear, I’m feeling political today. It’s just that it’s dawned on me that ‘zero tolerance’ only seems to mean putting extra police in poor, run-down areas, and not in the Stock Exchange. > [@](#): > > Oh, come on. Revelation was a mushroom dream that belonged in the Apocrypha. The New Testament is basically about what happened when God got religion. > [@](#): > > You can’t make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago “Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world’s music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, traveling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don’t have to die of dental abcesses and you don’t have to do what the squire tells you” they’d think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say ‘yes’. > [@](#): > > A true beanie should have a propellor on the top. > [@](#): > > This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic. > [@](#): > > I was thinking of ‘duh?’ in the sense of ‘a sentence containing several words more than three letters long, and possibly requiring general knowledge or a sense of history that extends past last Tuesday, has been used in my presence.’ > [@](#): > > I staggered into a Manchester bar late one night on a tour and the waitress said “You look as if you need a Screaming Orgasm”. At the time this was the last thing on my mind… > [@](#): > > I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him. > [@](#): > > I’m referred to, I see, as ‘the biggest banker in modern publishing’. Now there’s a line that needed the celebrated Guardian proof-reading. > [@](#): > > I save about twenty drafts — that’s ten meg of disc space — and the last one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and received by the publishers, there’s a cry here of ‘Tough shit, literary researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!’ and the rest are wiped. > [@](#): > > Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them. > [@](#): > > Death isn’t on line. If he was, there would be a sudden drop in the death rate. Although it’d be interesting to see if he’d post things like: DON’T YOU THINK I SOUND LIKE JAMES EARL JONES? > [@](#): > > Too many people want to have written. > [@](#): > > DW is based on a slew of old myths, which reach their most ‘refined’ form in Hindu mythology, which in turn of course derived from the original Star Trek episode ‘Planet of Wobbly Rocks where the Security Guard Got Shot’. > [@](#): > > Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possibly go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent. > [@](#): > > As for The Mapp… I suspect it’ll never get a US publication. It seemed to frighten US publishers. They don’t seem to understand it. > That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans: > A European says: I can’t understand this, what’s wrong with me? An American says: I can’t understand this, what’s wrong with him? > I make no suggestion that one side or other is right, but observation over many years leads me to believe it is true. > [@](#): > > 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. > But it is true that in an interview I gave recently I did describe a sudden, distinct feeling I had one hectic day that everything I was doing was right and things were happening as they should. > It seemed like the memory of a voice and it came wrapped in its own brief little bubble of tranquillity. I’m not used to this. > As a fantasy writer I create fresh gods and philosophies almost with every new book … But since contracting Alzheimer’s disease I have spent my long winter walks trying to work out what it is that I really, if anything, believe. > [@](#): > > I asked a teacher what the opposite of a miracle was and she, without thinking, I assume, said it was an act of God. > You shouldn’t say something like that to the kind of kid who will grow up to be a writer; we have long memories. > [@](#): > > Belief was never mentioned at home, but right actions were taught by daily example. > Possibly because of this, I have never disliked religion. I think it has some purpose in our evolution. > I don’t have much truck with the “religion is the cause of most of our wars” school of thought because that is manifestly done by mad, manipulative and power-hungry men who cloak their ambition in God. > I number believers of all sorts among my friends. Some of them are praying for me. I’m happy they wish to do this, I really am, but I think science may be a better bet. > [@](#): > > So what shall I make of the voice that spoke to me recently as I was scuttling around getting ready for yet another spell on a chat-show sofa? > More accurately, it was a memory of a voice in my head, and it told me that everything was OK and things were happening as they should. For a moment, the world had felt at peace. Where did it come from? > Me, actually — the part of all of us that, in my case, caused me to stand in awe the first time I heard Thomas Tallis’s _Spem in alium,_ and the elation I felt on a walk one day last February, when the light of the setting sun turned a ploughed field into shocking pink; I believe it’s what Abraham felt on the mountain and Einstein did when it turned out that E=mc2. > It’s that moment, that brief epiphany when the universe opens up and shows us something, and in that instant we get just a sense of an order greater than Heaven and, as yet at least, beyond the grasp of Stephen Hawking. It doesn’t require worship, but, I think, rewards intelligence, observation and enquiring minds. > I don’t think I’ve found God, but I may have seen where gods come from. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/34 "2013-01-13T20:04:14Z")
From [_Good Omens:_](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Good_Omens) > [@](#): > > God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players\*, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who _smiles all the time._ > > - _ie.,_ everybody > [@](#): > > On the whole, neither he [the angel Aziraphale] nor [the demon] Crowley would have chosen each other’s company. But they were both men, or at least men-shaped creatures, of the world, and the Arrangement had worked to their advantage all this time. Besides, you grew accustomed to the only other face that had been around more or less consistently for six millennia. > > The Arrangement was very simple, so simple in fact that it didn’t really deserve the capital letters, which it had got for simply being in existence for so long. It was the sort of sensible arrangement that many isolated agents, working in awkward conditions a long way from their superiors, reach with their opposite number when they realize that they have more in common with their immediate opposition than their remote allies. It meant a tacit non-interference in certain of each others’ activities. It made certain that, while neither won, also neither really lost, and both were able to demonstrate to their masters the great strides they were making against a cunning and well-informed adversary. > > It meant that Crowley had been allowed a free hand to develop Manchester, while Aziraphale had a free hand in the whole of Shropshire. Crowley took Glasgow, Aziraphale had Edinburgh (neither claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes\*, but both reported it as a success). > \*Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing. > [@](#): > > It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people. > [@](#): > > He rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon. > Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. > [@](#): > > Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn’t work, 2) didn’t do what the expensive advertisements said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighborhood, 4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expensive box when you opened it, this was expressly, absolutely, implicitly and in no event the fault or responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider himself lucky to be allowed to give his money to the manufacturer, and that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchaser’s own property would result in the attentions of serious men with menacing briefcases and very thin watches. Crowley had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: “Learn, guys…” > [@](#): > > “She managed to come up with the kind of predictions that you can only understand after the thing has happened,” said Anathema. “Like ‘Do Notte Buye Betamacks.’ That was a prediction for 1972.” > [@](#): > > The technical term for it is infrablack. It can be seen quite easily under experimental conditions. To perform the experiment simply select a healthy brick wall with a good runup, and, lowering your head, charge. The color that flashes in bursts behind your eyes, behind the pain, just before you die, is infrablack. > [@](#): > > You think wars get started because some old duke gets shot, or someone cuts off someone’s ear, or someone’s sited their missiles in the wrong place. It’s not like that. That’s just, well, just _reasons,_ which haven’t got anything to do with it. What really causes wars is two sides that can’t stand the sight of one another and the pressure builds up and up and then anything will cause it. Anything at all. > [@](#): > > “I don’t see what’s so t’riffic about creating people as people and then gettin’ upset 'cos they act like people,” said Adam severely. “Anyway, if you stopped tellin’ people it’s all sorted out after they’re dead, they might try sorting it all out while they’re alive.” > [@](#): > > There never was an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/35 "2013-01-14T12:27:59Z")
A bit less high minded. I like this from Lords and Ladies. Nanny Ogg: Cor, you don’t half look like your picture! Not a quote, I’m even sure it’s described explicitly. In Carpe Jugulum the omnian priest Mightily Oats saves Granny’s life by… Building a fire with his holy book. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/36 "2013-01-14T18:00:39Z")
> [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > Not a quote, I’m even sure it’s described explicitly. In Carpe Jugulum the omnian priest Mightily Oats saves Granny’s life by… > > Building a fire with his holy book. That part makes me tear up, every time. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/37 "2013-01-14T20:30:30Z")
The bit in THUD! where Vimes is in the caves makes me tear up like a ninny… ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/38 "2013-01-14T22:20:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You can find four whole pages of Pratchett on Wikiquote: I’m sure there are, but I was asking people what bits they particularly liked. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/39 "2013-01-14T22:58:47Z")
From Good Omens: “Imagine how terrible it would have gone if we had been at all competent.” ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910/40 "2013-01-14T23:17:47Z")
"That’s when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.” - _Unseen Academicals_ “People only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.” - _Eric_ “It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.” - _The Last Continent_ “If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are." - _Lords and Ladies_ “Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” “I’d rather be a rising ape than a falling angel.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bits-of-pratchett/646910.md?page=3)