Terry Pratchett Quotes - Page 8

To be frank, I find religion rather offensive.

To tell you the truth, I'm something of an atheist.

And so Mort came at last to the river Ankh, greatest of rivers. Even before it entered the city, it was slow and heavy with the silt of the plains, and by the time it got to The Shades even an agnostic could have walked across it. It was hard to drown in the Ankh, but easy to suffocate.

She is standing just behind you. Just behind your right shoulder."
In the silence of the woods, Polly turned.
"I can't see her," she said.
"I am happy for you," said Wazzer, handing her the empty mug.
"But I didn't see anything," said Polly.
"No," said Wazzer. "But you turned around...

The Tezuman Empire in the jungle valleys of central Klatch is known for it organic market gardens, its exquisite craftsmanship in obsidian, feathers and jade, and its mass human sacrifices in honor of Quezovercoatl, the Feathered Boa, god of mass human sacrifices.

Other people say: hold on, if he's carrying the entire universe in a sack, right, that means he's carrying himself and the sack inside the sack, because the universe contains everything. Including him. And the sack, of course. Which contains him and the sack already. As it were.

To which the reply is: well?

But…but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. Its table d´hôte or nothing, otherwise…well, it would be silly.

Lots of people would be as cowardly as me if they were brave enough.

That’s what being alive is, Thing! It’s being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing!

Everybody has somebody. It could be a friend, a lover, a spouse, a writing partner, or even That One Person You See At The Coffee Shop each day. Sometimes they exist to comfort you. Sometimes they exist to drive you absolutely mad. Be open to either as a form of self-improvement.

Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.
But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

Every intelligent being, whether it breathes or not, coughs nervously at some time in its life.

It was a large room, heavily outfitted with the usual badly ventilated furnaces, rows of bubbling crucibles, and one stuffed alligator. Things floated in jars. The air smelled of a limited life expectancy.

Von außen – und erst recht von innen – sieht der Prozess wissenschaftlicher Forschung ungeordnet und verwirrend aus. Man ist versucht zu glauben, Wissenschaftler seien selber unordentlich und verwirrt. In gewisser Hinsicht sind sie es – das gehört zur Forschung. Wenn man wüsste, was man tut, wäre es keine Forschung

Amazin'.' he said again. 'He just looks as though he's thinking, right?'
'Er...yes.'
'But he's not actually thinking?'
'Er...no.'
'So...he just gives the impression of thinking but really it's just a show?'
'Er...yes.'
Just like everyone else, then really,' said Ridcully

Wizards don’t believe in gods. They didn’t deny their existence, of course. They just didn’t believe. It was nothing personal; they weren’t actually rude about it. Gods were a visible part of narrativium that made things work, that gave the world its purpose. It was just that they were best avoided close up.

If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.

It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as 'slightly foxed', although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.

There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.

Books must be treated with respect, we feel that in our bones, because words have power. Bring enough words together they can bend space and time.