Aminet 4/Aminet 4 - November 1994.iso/aminet/comm/ums/kms190b.lha/KMS/Data/KMS_QUOTES.DAT

Text File | 1993-09-21 | 87KB | 2,417 lines

Asking someone to repeat a phrase you'd not only heard very clearly but
were also exceedingly angry about was around Defcon II in the lexicon of
squabble.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


"I saw a film where there was an alien crawling around inside a spaceship's
air ducts and it could come out wherever it liked," said Johnny
reproachfully.
"Doubtless it had a map," said the Captain.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


"What is this thing, anyway?" said the Dean, inspecting the implement in
his hands.
"It's called a shovel," said the Senior Wrangler. "I've seen the gardeners
use them. You stick the sharp end in the ground. Then it gets a bit
technical."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three
impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was
gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"Woof bloody woof."
        -- Gaspode the Wonder Dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


The Librarian looked out at the jolting scenery. He was sulking. This had
a lot to do with the new bright collar around his neck with the word
"PONGO" on it. Someone was going to suffer for this.
        -- The Librarian travels incognito
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


"You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could
do is give them a meaningful look."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"That's right," he said. "We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the
Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous
phrase, "You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and
there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink."
        -- We meet Dydactylos the philosopher
           (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Dhblah sidled closer. This was not hard. Dhblah sidled everywhere. *Crabs*
thought he walked sideways.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Oook!"


"Oook?"


"Kneel and deliver!"
        -- Casanunda, the worlds smallest lover turns highwaydwarf
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


No-one would have believed, in the final years of the Century of the
Fruitbat, that Discworld affairs were being watched keenly and impatiently
by intelligences greater than Man's, or at least much nastier; that their
affairs were being scrutinised and studied as a man with a three-day
appetite might study the All-You-Can-Gobble-For-A-Dollar menu outside
Harga's House of Ribs...
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"The knuckles! The horrible knuckles!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


"Have another drink, not-Corporal Nobby?" said Sergeant Colon unsteadily.
"I do not mind if I do, not-Sgt Colon," said Nobby.
        -- The joys of working undercover
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


"'E's fighting in there!" he stuttered, grabbing the captain's arm.
"All by himself?" said the captain.
"No, with everyone!" shouted Nobby, hopping from one foot to the other.
        -- Making Friends and Hitting People
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


It's a small step for a man, but a giant leap for nomekind.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Truckers)


Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in
your home.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


The vermine is a small black and white relative of the lemming, found in
the cold Hublandish regions. Its skin is rare and highly valued, especially
by the vermine itself; the selfish little bastard will do anything rather
than let go of it.
        -- Discworld wildlife
           (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)


Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant "idiot".
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)


- "We've got a lot of experience of not having any experience"
- "But the point is... the point is... the point is we've not been
   experienced for a lot longer than you."
        -- Stop being so negative
           (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


The only way housework could be done in this place was with a shovel or,
for preference, a match.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


People didn't hit you over the head with farmhouses back home.
        -- Nanny Ogg gets homesick
           (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way
that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government.
        -- Local-body politics explained
           (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


"Baths is unhygienic," Granny declared. "You know I've never agreed
with baths. Sittin' around in your own dirt like that."
        -- Taking personal hygiene to new limits
           (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because -- what with trolls and
dwarfs and so on -- speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived
in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


Nanny Ogg quite liked cooking, provided there were other people around to
do things like chop up the vegetables and wash the dishes afterwards.
        -- Home Pragmatics
           (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


"Emberella," thought Magrat. "I'm fairy godmothering a girl who sounds like
something you put up in the rain."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


Magrat was annoyed. She was also frightened, which made her even more
annoyed. It was hard for people when Magrat was annoyed. It was like being
attacked by damp tissue.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


Nanny Ogg looked him up and down or, at least, down and further down.
"You're a dwarf," she said.
        -- Nanny Ogg meets Casanunda
           (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


It was the sort of thing you expected in the Street of Alchemists. The
neighbours *preferred* explosions, which were at least identifiable and
soon over. They were better than the smells, which crept up on you.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Meat pies! Hot sausages! Inna bun! So fresh the pig h'an't noticed they're
gone!"
        -- Genuine pig portion packages
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


The Archchancellor's most important job, as the Bursar saw it, was to sign
things, preferably, from the Bursar's point of view, without reading them
first.
        -- Middle management explained
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


By and large, the only skill the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork had discovered
so far was the ability to turn gold into less gold.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


Most alchemists were nervous, in any case; it came from not knowing what
the crucible of bubbling stuff they were experimenting with was going to do
next.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter."
        -- Popcorn comes to the Discworld
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Students?" barked the Archchancellor.
"Yes, Master. You know? They're the thinner ones with the pale faces?
Because we're a *university*? They come with the whole thing, like rats --"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam.
Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and
subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of
understanding of this simple fact.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


And then you bit onto them, and learned once again that Cut-me-own-Throat
Dibbler could find a use for bits of an animal that the animal didn't know
it had got. Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried onions and
mustard people would eat *anything*.
        -- A fact McDonalds knows about as well
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


There seemed nowhere in it for him, but this wasn't a problem. There was
always room at the top.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"The thing is that Mr. Dibbler can even sell sausages to people who have
bought them off him *before*."
        -- Now *that's* marketing
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


- "You pay for it before you eat it? What happens if it's dreadful?"
- "That's why."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"One minute I'm just another rabbit and happy about it, next minute
*whazaam*, I'm thinking. That's a major drawback if you're looking for
happiness as a rabbit, let me tell you. You want grass and sex, not
thoughts like 'What's it all about, when you get right down to it?'"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I'm a cat person, myself," she said, vaguely. A low-level voice said:
"Yeah? Yeah? Wash in your own spit, do you?"
        -- It's a dog's life
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Why's it called Ming?" said the Archchancellor, on cue.
The Bursar tapped the pot. It went *ming*.
        -- Discworld archeology revealed
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


- "I thought swords had to be straight."
- "Perhaps they start out straight and go bendy with use. A lot of things do."
        -- Odour-eaters, right? Yeah, she means odour-eaters.
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


Azhural raised his staff. "It's fifteen hundred miles to Ankh-Morpork," he
said. "We've got three hundred and sixty-three elephants, fifty carts of
forage, the monsoon's about to break and we're wearing... we're wearing...
sort of things, like glass, only dark... dark glass things on our eyes..."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to
a sticky end. All over the entire room, sometimes.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"He's in love," said Gaspode. "It's very tricky."
"Yeah, I know how it is," said the cat sympathetically. "People throwing
old boots and things at you."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"In a word -- im-possible!"
"That's two words," said Dibbler.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I'm vice-president of Throwing Out People Mr Dibbler Doesn't like the
Face of."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


- "It looks worse than you can imagine!"
- "I can imagine some pretty bad things!"
- "That's why I said *worse*!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


Old Tom was the single cracked bronze bell in the University bell tower.
The clapper dropped out shortly after it was cast, but the bell still
tolled out some tremendously sonorous silences every hour.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room.
The difference is, when you shout, "Where's my clean socks?", no-one
answers.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


It was true about the time measurement as well. The Tezumen had realized
long ago that everything was steadily getting worse and, having a terrible
little-mindedness, had developed a complex system to keep track of how much
worse each succeeding day was.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


"These people were not only cheering, they were throwing flowers and hats.
The hats were made of stone, but the thought was there."
        -- Life among the primitive Discworld tribes
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


While working his way along a wall he came to a huge door, which
artistically portrayed a group of prisoners apparently being given a
complete medical check-up [footnote: From a distance it did, anyway.
Close to, no].
        -- Rincewind visits the Tezumen tribe
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


- "There's a door"
- "Where does it go?"
- "It stays where it is, I think."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


The trouble is that things *never* get better, they just stay the same,
only more so.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


- "So we're surrounded by absolutely nothing. There's a word for it. It's
   what you get when there's nothing left and everything's been used up."
- "Yes. I think it's called the bill."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


- "What're quantum mechanics?"
- "I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


No one was avoiding him, it was just that an apparent random Brownian
motion was gently moving everyone away.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


"Dock-a-loodle-fod!"
        -- Dyslexic roosters are a sad sight
           (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


People have believed for hundreds of years that newts in a well mean that
the water's fresh and drinkable, and *in all that time* never asked
themselves whether the newts got out to go to the lavatory.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


He'd never realized that, deep down inside, what he really wanted to do
was make things go splat.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


DROP THE SCYTHE, AND TURN AROUND SLOWLY.
        -- Dirty Death
           (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


It is traditional, when loading wire trolleys, to put the most fragile
items at the bottom.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


Not matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got
there first, and is waiting for it.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


"Woof?"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Could have bin worse, mister. I could have said 'miaow'."
        -- Our hero meets Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Worlds only harmonica-playing dog. Tuppence."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Seems I can't get me 'ead down these days without rescuin' people or
foilin' robbers or sunnink."
        -- It's a wonder dog's life
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"How's he in the mysterious senses department?"
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Walk a mile on these paws and call me a liar."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Woof. In tones of low menace."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"There's nothin' wrong with bein' a son of a bitch."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I thought it was going to be bucket-of-water time myself."
        -- Gaspode's way of saying "I'm sorry, was I intruding?"
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Yelp."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I can explain it in Dog, but you only listen in Human."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I mean are we talking Thicko City here or what?"
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I wouldn't give it to a dog, and I *am* one."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Does that look like ten per cent to you, Victor?"
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"... Percy the Pup here with a cold nose, bright eyes, glossy coat and
the brains of a stunned herring."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog on 'Laddie'
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Maybe you should loosen her clothing or something."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I could send you a bone with a file in it, only you'd eat it."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Well, 'scuse me. I was jus' tryin' to save the world."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"If gharstely creatures from before the Dawna Time starts wavin' at you
from under your bed, jus' you don't come complainin' to me,"
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Idiot I may be, but tied up I ain't."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"And Howondaland Smith, Balrog Hunter, practic'ly eats the dark for
his tea."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Messin' around with girls in thrall to Creatures from the Void never works
out, take my word for it."
        -- Gaspode gives Victor some practical advice
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"Growl, growl."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I can bite your leg if you like."
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


"I expect I've saved the day, right?"
        -- Gaspode the wonder dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


I MUST SAY THESE ARE VERY GOOD BISCUITS. HOW DO THEY GET THE BITS OF
CHOCOLATE IN?
        -- Death has a snack
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


There was a badger in the privy.
        -- Granny Weatherwax returns home from vacation
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of
housework in other people.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since
it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


I LIKE TO THINK I AM A PICKER-UP OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES. Death grinned
hopefully.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Mustrum Ridcully did a lot for rare species. For one thing, he kept
them rare.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a
red flag to a bu-- was like putting something very annoying in front of
someone who was annoyed by it.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


The thing about iron is that you generally don't have to think fast in
dealing with it.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you
never knew your luck.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


The chieftain had been turned into a pumpkin although, in accordance with
the rules of universal humour, he still had his hat on.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


For Magrat, stepping into a man's bedroom was like an explorer stepping on
to that part of the map marked Here Be Dragons.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


"I wants your body, Mrs Ogg."
        -- Casanunda makes his move
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


"I know she's in there," said Verence, holding his crown in his hands in
the famous Ai-Senor-Mexican-Bandits-Have-Raided-Our-Village position.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
        -- Schrodinger's Moggy explained
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined
as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab
behind you honking.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


"Serve 'em right for not inviting me to their weddings."
        -- Ridcully contemplates the Trousers of Time
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


One day a tortoise will learn how to fly.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


History, contrary to popular theories, *is* kings and dates and battles.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


And it came to pass that in time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the
Chosen One: "Psst!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Brother Preptil, the master of the music, had described Brutha's voice as
putting him in mind of a disappointed vulture arriving too late at the dead
donkey.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"There's very good eating on one of these, you know."
        -- Eyeing the tortoise for tea
           (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of
starvation too, o'course."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Words are the litmus paper of the minds. If you find yourself in the power
of someone who will use the word "commence" in cold blood, go somewhere
else very quickly. But if they say "Enter", don't stop to pack.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


The labyrinth of Ephebe is ancient and full of one hundred and one amazing
things you can do with hidden springs, razor-sharp knives, and falling
rocks.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Ah. Philosophy," said Om.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Not a man to mince words. People, yes. But not words."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


SQUEAK.
        -- The Death of Rats
           (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up were the kings don't
expect them to be.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Eureka," he said.
"Going to have a bath then?"
        -- Philosophy in action
           (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Are you a philosopher? Where's your sponge?"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


REMIND ME AGAIN, he said, HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE.
        -- Death on symbolic last games
           (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today,
is: "Why is it so dark in here?"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)


All assassins had a full-length mirror in their rooms, because it would be
a terrible insult to anyone to kill them when you were badly dressed.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)


"You can't second-guess ineffability, I always say."
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


He was currently wondering vaguely who Moey and Chandon were.
        -- Crowley listens to his favourite rock group
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


He'd been particularly pleased with Manchester.
        -- Crowley contemplating his achievements
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


The only time Crowley had bought petrol was once in 1967, to get the free
James Bond bullet-hole-in-the-windscreen transfers, which he rather fancied
at the time.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


He wondered reflectively what would happen if you asked a nun where the
Gents was. Probably the Pope sent you a sharp note or something.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Humans suffering from a conflict of signals aren't the best people to be
holding guns, especially when they've just witnessed a natural childbirth,
which definitely looked an un-American way of bringing new citizens into
the world.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Of course he was all in favour of Armageddon in *general* terms.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"You see a wile, you thwart. Am I right?"
        -- Crowley the demon and Aziraphale the angel in conversation
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


On those occasions when the angel managed to get his mind into the
twentieth century, it always gravitated to 1950.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


They drove back through the dawn, while the cassette player played J. S.
Bach's Mass in B Minor, vocals by F. Mercury.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"Art thou a witch, *viva espana*?"
        -- The Spanish Inquisition (Tadfield version) in action
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Anathema didn't only believe in ley-lines, but in seals, whales, bicycles,
rainforests, whole grain in loves, recycled paper, white South Africans out
of South Africa, and Americans out of practically everywhere down to and
including Long Island.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


English Burger Lords managed to take any American fast food virtues (the
speed with which your food was delivered, for example) and carefully remove
them; your food arrived after half an hour, at room temperature, and it was
only because of the strip of warm lettuce between them that you could
distinguish the burger from the bun. The Burger Lord pathfinder salesmen
had been shot 25 minutes after setting foot in France.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the
North Pole.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING
EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


The Kappamaki, a whaling research ship, was currently researching the
question: How many whales can you catch in one week?
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


The kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"?" he said.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Madame Tracy had even removed most of the Major Arcana from her Tarot card
pack, because their appearance tended to upset people.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAYS, said the tall biker in the helmet, I NEVER LAID
A FINGER ON HIM.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Voodoo is a very interesting religion for the whole family, even those
members of it who are dead.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


        "Jesus won't cut you off before you're through
        With him you won't never get a crossed line,
        And when your bill comes it'll all be properly itemised
        He's the telephone repairman on the switchboard of my life.

        The phone line to the saviour's always free of interference
        He's in at any hour, day or night
        And when you call J-E-S-U-S you always call toll-free
        He's the telephone repairman on the switchboard of my life."

                -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


- "ALL YOU CAN HOPE FOR IS THE MERCY OF HELL."
- "Yeah?"
- "JUST OUR LITTLE JOKE."
- "Ngk," said Crowley.
        -- Crowley in conversation with his superiors
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking towards Tadfield.
And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty To Animals, Things Not Working Properly
Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping but secretly No Alcohol Lager,
and Really Cool People travelled with them.
        -- The eight Bikers of the Apocalypse
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Thud. Thud. Thud. Splat.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"Did any of them kids have some space alien with a face like a friendly
turd in a bike basket?"
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Basically, there were two sides to the world. There was the entire computer
games software industry engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy,
and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was in front.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


Wobbler had written an actual computer game like this once. It was called
"Journey to Alpha Centauri". It was a screen with some dots on it.
Because, he said, it happened in *real time*, which no-one had ever heard
of until computers. He'd seen on TV that it took three thousand years to
get to Alpha Centauri. He had written it so that if anyone kept their
computer on for three thousand years, they'd be rewarded by a little dot
appearing in the middle of the screen, and then a message saying, "Welcome
to Alpha Centauri. Now go home."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


Wobbler thought that California was where good people went when they died.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


If Not You, Who Else?
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


"We got a talk about it at school. There's lots of stuff most girls can't
do, but you've got to pretend they can, so that more of them will."
        -- Sexism explained
           (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


Bigmac's brother was reliably believed to be in the job of moving video
recorders around in an informal way.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


He microwaved himself something called a Pour-On Genuine Creole Lasagne,
which said it served four portions. It did if you were dwarfs.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


On Earth, No-one Can Hear You Say "Um".
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


"Stuck? You're an *alien*," said Johnny. "Aliens don't get stuck in
air ducts. It's practically a well-known fact."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


"If we find a cat I'm going to kick it!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)


"Reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits?"
        -- Economics explained
           (Terry Pratchett, The Colour Of Magic)


I WAS AT A PARTY, he added, a shade reproachfully.
        -- Death is summoned by the Wizards
           (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


If broomsticks were cars, this one would be a split-window Morris Minor.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)


"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal often offends,
I read somewhere."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


"When a man is tired of Ankh-Morpork, he is tired of ankle-deep slurry."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


"I'd like to know if I could compare you to a summer's day. Because --
well, June 12th was quite nice, and..."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


"Ibid you already know."
        -- More Discworld philosophers
           (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)


FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC.
        -- The motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


"Pour encourjay lays ortras."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


"This is Lord Mountjoy Quickfang Winterforth IV, the hottest dragon in the
city. It could burn your head clean off."
        -- Captain Vimes addresses a band of rioters
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


"Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little."
        -- Victor's resume
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


I EXPECT, he said, THAT YOU COULD MURDER A PIECE OF CHEESE?
        -- Death talks to the Death of Rats
           (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


On the fabled hidden continent of Xxxx, somewhere near the rim, there is a
lost colony of wizards who wear corks around their pointy hats and live on
nothing but prawns.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


"Bonsai!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


"Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last week," said
the low priest.
        -- Life in the Temple of Offler
           (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


"You know," said Windle, "it's a wonderful afterlife."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


- "'S called the Vieux River."
- "Yes?"
- "Know what that means?"
- "No."
- "The Old (Masculine) River," said Nanny.
- "Yes?"
- "Words have sex in foreign parts," said Nanny hopefully.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


"Go on, do Deformed Rabbit... it's my favourite."
        -- Shadow puppets are so cute
           (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Hah, I can just see a real playsmith putting *donkeys* in a play!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords And Ladies)


"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian ones. They are
not all that subtle."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords And Ladies)


- "The other humans around it are trying to explain to it what a planet is."
- "Doesn't it know?"
- "Many humans don't. Mistervicepresident is one of them."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy,
according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you
can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap
between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to
the heir *instantaneously*. Presumably, he said, there must be some
elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job,
but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an
anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to
send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to
modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the
bar closed.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU," he said, "BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
        -- Death addresses his new apprentice
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's
the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city
with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who
prefer daffodils and no wonder.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


It is a fact that although the Death of the Discworld is, in his own words,
an ANTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION, he long ago gave up using the
traditional skeletal horses, because of the bother of having to stop all
the time to wire bits back on.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


"You're dead," he said. Keli waited. She couldn't think of any suitable
reply. "I'm not" lacked a certain style, while "Is it serious?" seemed
somehow too frivolous.
        -- Princess Keli in trouble
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


The thing between Death's triumphant digits was a fly from the dawn of
time. It was the fly in the primordial soup. It had bred on mammoth
turds.  It wasn't a fly that bangs on window panes, it was a fly that
drills through walls.
        -- Death goes fishing
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up
with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was
the Man; he had the Vote.
        -- Discworld politics explained
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


- I USHERED SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD. I WAS THE GRAVE OF ALL HOPE. I
  WAS THE ULTIMATE REALITY. I WAS THE ASSASSIN AGAINST WHOM NO LOCK
  WOULD HOLD.
- "Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?"
        -- Death consults a job broker
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


- "Sodomy non sapiens," said Albert under his breath.
- "What does that mean?"
- "Means I'm buggered if I know."
        -- Mort and Albert are facing a problem
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


Women's clothes were not a subject that preoccupied Cutwell much -- in
fact, usually when he thought about women his mental pictures seldom
included any clothes at all -- but the vision in front of him really did
take his breath away.
        -- Princess Keli prepares for her coronation
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


"You won't get away with this," said Cutwell. He thought for a bit and
added, "Well, you will probably get away with it, but you'll feel bad about
it on your deathbed and you'll wish -- "
He stopped talking.
        -- Cutwell tries to reason with the Duke of Sto Helit
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


"It's going to look pretty good, then, isn't it," said War testily, "the
One Horseman and Three Pedestrians of the Apocralypse."
        -- The Four Horsemen of the Apocralypse encounter
           unexpected difficulties
           (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)


"There is nothing that can be in our way, for this is Jekub, that Laughs at
Barriers, and says brrm-brrm."
        -- From the Book Of Nome, Jekub, Chap. 3, v. V
           (Terry Pratchett, Diggers)


It wasn't blood in general he couldn't stand the sight of, it was just his
blood in particular that was so upsetting.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)


"I'm not going to ride on a magic carpet!" he hissed.
"I'm afraid of grounds."
"You mean heights," said Conina. "And stop being silly."
"I know what I mean! It's the grounds that kill you!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)


"Did I hear things, or can that little dog speak?" said Dibbler.
"He says he can't," said Victor. Dibbler hesitated.
"Well," he said, "I suppose he should know."
        -- Dibbler meets Gaspode the Wonder Dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


Still, it was a relief to get away from that macabre sight. Gander
considered that gnolls didn't look any better inside than out. He hated
their guts.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)


It became apparent that one reason why the Ice Giants were known as the Ice
Giants was because they were, well, giants. The other was that they were made
of ice.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)


A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally
established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon
or three normal sized billiard balls.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record
for the nonchalant walk.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


- "What is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?"
- "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper."
        -- Cohen the Barbarian in conversation with Discworld nomads
           (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


The old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through
upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did
you?" The boy looked at him levelly. "Certainly not," he said. The old man
heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he said. "Neither did I."
        -- Rincewind and Twoflower take up broomstick flying
           (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


Something small and distant broke through the cloud layer, trailing shreds
of vapour. In the stratospheric calm the sounds of bickering came sharp and
clear.
"You said you could fly one of these things!"
"No I didn't; I just said *you* couldn't!"
        -- Rincewind and Twoflower attempt broomstick flying
           (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


"Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)
           Apparently Terry nicked this from James Thurber. Still a good
           quote, though.


The druid stiffened. "*Nice?*" he said. "A triumph of the silicon chunk, a
miracle of modern masonic technology -- *nice*?" "Oh, yes," said Twoflower,
to whom sarcasm was merely a seven letter word beginning with S.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


"Shut up and tell me what that other idiot ish doing!"
"No, but look, if I've got to shut up, how can I --"
The knife at his throat became a hot streak of pain and Rincewind decided
to give logic a miss.
        -- Cohen the Barbarian interrogates Rincewind
           (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired
Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty
manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hung Ling's Oriental
Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly
dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword. All right,
maybe the boots were leather. But not black.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


"Students made it long ago," said Rincewind. "Handy way in and out after
lights out."
"Ah," said Twoflower, "I *understand*. Over the wall and out to
brightly-lit tavernas to drink and sing and recite poetry, yes?"
"Nearly right except for the singings and the poetry, yes," said Rincewind.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


- "Pull me up, then," he hinted.
- "I think that might be sort of difficult," grunted Twoflower. "I don't
  actually think I can do it, in fact."
- "What are you holding on to, then?"
- "You."
- "I mean besides me."
- "What do you mean, besides you?" said Twoflower.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


- "If you're going to suggest I try dropping twenty feet down a pitch dark
  tower in the hope of hitting a couple of greasy little steps which might
  not even still be there, you can forget it," said Rincewind sharply.
- "There is an alternative, then."
- "Out with it, man."
- "You could drop five hundred feet down a pitch black tower and hit stones
  which certainly are there," said Twoflower.
Dead silence from below him. Then Rincewind said, accusingly, "That
was sarcasm."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


The librarian was, ex officio, a member of the college council. No-one had
been able to find any rule about orang-utans being barred, although they
had surreptiously looked very hard for one.
        -- Unseen University politics at work
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


I HOPE WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE ANY OF THIS 'FOUL FIEND' BUSINESS AGAIN.
        -- Death gets summoned by the college council
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


There had been some desultory talk about putting up a statue to Rincewind
but, by the curious alchemy that tends to apply in these sensitive issues,
this quickly became a plaque, then a note on the Roll of Honour, and
finally a motion of censure for being improperly dressed.
        -- Unseen University politics at work
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


Any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough
to realise that if there was any power in demonology, then it lay with the
demons. Using it for your own purposes would be like trying to beat mice to
death with a rattlesnake.
        -- Why summoning demons is a Bad Idea
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of
the dead, and so 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.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


"You mean mysterious ancient races of Amazonian princesses who subject all
male prisoners to strange and exhausting progenitative rites?"  said Eric,
his glasses beginning to fog.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to
storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the
citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


There was a thoughtful pause in the conversation as the assembled Brethren
mentally divided the universe into the deserving and the undeserving, and
put themselves on the appropriate side.
        -- The Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated
           Brethren see the light (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


All dwarfs have beards and wear up to twelve layers of clothing.
Gender is more or less optional.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


All dwarfs are by nature dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and
thoughtful people whose only minor failing is a tendency, after one drink,
to rush at enemies screaming "Arrrrrrgh!" and axing their legs off at the
knee.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across
the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from
behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone
else."
        -- Carrot travels to Ankh-Morpork
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


He nodded to the troll which was employed by the Drum as a splatter
[footnote: Like a bouncer, but trolls use more force].
        -- Nobby takes Carrot for a drink in The Mended Drum
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military
manoeuvres, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the
Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of.
        -- The City Watch takes action
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


Lady Ramkin's bosom rose and fell like an empire.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad
enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing.
        -- Captain Vimes ponders his problems
           (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2)
Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not
interfere with the nature of causality.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice,
except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had
got so good at it.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
        -- Death appeals to Azraphael
           (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


The sergeant put on the poker face which has been handed down from NCO to
NCO ever since one protoamphibian told another, lower ranking
protoamphibian to muster a squad of newts and Take That Beach.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


- "What shall I do?"
- "Well, if you see anything crawl out of the sea and try to breathe,
   you could try telling it not to bother."
        -- Rincewind and Eric at the Beginning of Time
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure
sign of a diseased mind."
        -- Something that Terry feels strongly about, because a similar
           quote also appears in "Reaper Man"
           (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


The Supreme Life President of Hell wrote: "What business are we in???" He
thought for a bit, and then carefully wrote, underneath: "We are in the
damnation business!!!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric)


"'Tis not right, a woman going into such places by herself."
Granny nodded. She thoroughly approved of such sentiments so long as
there was, of course, no suggestion that they applied to her.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


Above the hearth was a huge pokerwork sign saying "Mother". No tyrant in
the whole history of the world had ever achieved a domination so complete.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


"A man could go far, knowing his rights like you do," said Granny.
"But right now he should go home."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


"I daresay," said Granny, pushing the Fool aside and stepping over a
writhing taproot. "If anyone locked *me* in a dungeon, there'd be screams."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


"He didn't take any notice!" whispered Tomjon.
"A born critic," said the dwarf.
        -- Discworld stage actors in conversation
           (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


"Actors," said Granny, witheringly. "As if the world weren't full
of enough history without inventing more."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people
can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the
machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisement said,
3) electrocuted the immediate neighbourhood, 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.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


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."
        -- Crowley is a demon, in case you don't know
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


R. P. Tyler was not, however, satisfied simply with being vouchsafed the
difference between right and wrong. He felt it his bounden duty to tell the
world.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"This isn't how I imagined it, chaps," said War. "I haven't been waiting
for thousands of years just to fiddle around with bits of wire.  It's not
what you'd call *dramatic*. Albrecht Duerer didn't waste his time doing
woodcuts of the Four Button-Pressers of the Apocalypse, I do know that."
        -- Armageddon delayed by technical difficulties
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"I don't see why it matters what is written. Not when it's about people.
It can always be crossed out."
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


- "Have you any last words?"
- YES. I DON'T WANT TO GO.
- "Well. Succinct, anyway."
        -- Death at the other end of the scythe, for once
           (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)


"While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you
see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and
important facts of the universe."
Treatle nodded. "I hadn't looked at it like that," he said, "But you're
absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance."
        -- Discworld scientists at work
           (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)


They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than
ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.
        -- Discworld scientists at work
           (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)


"I meant," said Iplsore bitterly, "what is there in this world that makes
living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it. "CATS," he said eventually, "CATS ARE NICE."
        -- Death is obviously not a dog person
           (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)


In fact, no gods anywhere play chess. They prefer simple, vicious games,
where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight to Oblivion; a key
to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is
Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


They may have been ugly. they may have been evil. But when it came to
poetry in motion, the Things had all the grace and coordination of a
deck-chair.
        -- Meet the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions
           (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)


AIRPORTS: A place where people hurry up and wait.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


"I thought jet planes were just trucks with more wings and less wheels."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


Nomes live ten times faster than humans. They're harder to see than a high-
speed mouse. That's one reason why most humans hardly ever see them. The
other is that humans are very good at not seeing things they know aren't
there. And, since sensible humans know that there are no such things as
people four inches high, a nome who doesn't want to be seen probably won't
be seen.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


And then there were the frogs.
Very, very small frogs.
They had such a tiny life cycle it still had trainer wheels on it.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


And this had been the way things were for as far back as the frogs could
remember [footnote: About three seconds. Frogs don't have good memories].
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a
book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
        -- The nomes discuss science
           (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


CONCORDE: It goes twice as fast as a bullet and you get smoked salmon.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


It had been in a pocket diary, and the names of the faraway places written
on it were like magic -- Africa, Australia, China, Equator, Printed in Hong
Kong, Iceland...
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


They stared at the branch. There wasn't just one flower out there, there
were dozens, although the frogs weren't able to think like this because
frogs can't count beyond one. They saw lots of ones.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


They stared at them. Staring is one of the few things frogs are good at.
Thinking isn't.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


It would be nice to say that the tiny frogs thought long and hard about the
new flower, about life in the old flower, about the need to explore, about
the possibility that the world was bigger than a pool with petals around
the edge.
In fact, what they thought was: "._._.mipmip._._.mipmip._._.mipmip".
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


HOTELS: A place where TRAVELLING HUMANS are parked at night. Other humans
bring them food, including the famous BACON, LETTUCE AND TOMATO SANDWICH.
There are beds and towels and special things that rain on people to get
them clean.
        -- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
           by Angalo de Haberdasheri
           (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


- "Very clever idea, though."
- "What is?"
- "Asking the questions when people arrive. If anyone was coming here to
   do some subversive overthrowing, everyone'd be down on him like a pound of
   bricks as soon as he answered 'Yes'."
- "It's a sneaky trick, isn't it," said Angalo, in an admiring tone of
   voice.
        -- The nomes encounter American customs regulations
           (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


- "What's the human singing about, Thing?" said Masklin.
- "It is a little difficult to follow. However, it appears that the singer
   wishes it to be known that he did something his way."
- "Did what?"
- "Insufficient data at this point. But whatever it was, he did it at
   a) each step along life's highway and b) not in a shy way..."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


FLORIDA (or FLORIDIA): A place where may be found ALLIGATORS, LONG-NECKED
TURTLES and SPACE SHUTTLES. An interesting place which is warm and wet and
there are geese. BACON, LETTUCE AND TOMATO SANDWICHES may be found here
also. A lot more interesting than many other places. The shape when seen
from the air is like a bit stuck on a bigger bit.
        -- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
           by Angalo de Haberdasheri
           (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


SATELLITES: They are in SPACE and stay there by going so fast that they are
never in one place enough to fall down. TELEVISIONS are bounced off them.
They are part of SCIENCE.
        -- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
           by Angalo de Haberdasheri
           (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science
explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but
science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when
it is wrong. There is a lot more Science than you think.
        -- From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
           by Angalo de Haberdasheri
           (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


"All right," said Masklin. "But you're not to fly down low again and try
to read the signposts. Every time you do that, humans rush into the streets
and we get lots of shouting on the radio."
"That's right." said the Thing. "People are bound to get excited when
they see a ten-million-ton starship trying to fly down the street."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings)


"What do people like to drink here, then?"
The landlord looked sideways at his customers, a clever trick given that
they were directly in front of him.
        -- Mort goes out for a drink
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


"You like it?" he said to Mort, in pretty much the same tone of voice
people used when they said to St George, "You killed a *what*?"
        -- Mort tastes scrumble for the first time
           (Terry Pratchett, Mort)


In the Beginning

It was a nice day.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


"Go ahead, bake my quiche"
        -- Magrat instructs the castle cook
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Remember, A Dragon is For Life, Not Just for Hogswatchnight
        -- Motto of The Sunshine Home for Sick Dragons in Morphic Street,
           Please Leave Donations of Coal by Side Door.
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


There have, in the course of decadent history, been many large wigs, often
with build-in gewgaws to stop people having to look at boring hair all the
time. There had been ones big enough to contain pet mice or clockwork
ornaments. Mme Cupidor, mistress of Mad King Soup II, had one with a bird
cage in it, but on special state occasions wore one containing a perpetual
calendar, a floral clock and a take-away linguini shop.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


The place looked as though it had been visited by Gengiz Cohen [footnote:
hence the term "wholesale destruction"].
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


"This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here."
        -- The Bursar is a man under a *lot* of stress
           (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


The Ephebians made wine out of anything they could put in a bucket, and ate
anything that couldn't climb out of one.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)


Nature abhors dimensional abnormalities, and seals them neatly away so that
they don't upset people. Nature, in fact, abhors a lot of things, including
vacuums, ships called the "Marie Celeste", and the chuck keys for electric
drills.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)


"Yes, bugger all that." said Nanny. "Let's curse somebody."
        -- Even Nanny Ogg gets upset occasionally
           (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and
during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation
was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and
introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable
here that "all men spoke of his prowess" any bard who valued his life would
add hastily "except for a couple of people in his home village who thought
he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard
of him."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic)


On nights such as these the gods, as has already been pointed out, play
games other than chess with the fates of mortals and the thrones of kings.
It is important to remember that they always cheat, right up to the end...
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)


If you take the small view, the universe is just something small and round,
like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you
shake them. Although, unless the ineffable plan is a lot more ineffable
than it's given credit for, it does not have a large plastic snowman at the
bottom.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


- "You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?"
- REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.
        -- Death in conversation with a biker
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


The lorry blocked the road. And the corrugated iron blocked the road. And a
thirty-foot-high pile of fish blocked the road. It was one of the most
effectively blocked roads the sergeant had ever seen.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Crowley was in Hell's bad books. Not that Hell has any other kind.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


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 [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex
variant 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*.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


It wasn't a dark and stormy night.
It should have been, but there's the weather for you. For every mad
scientist who's had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great
Work is complete and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who've sat
around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the
overtime.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as
evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever
students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is
generally agreed to be among the top contenders for exhibit A.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Sister Mary headed through the night-time hospital with the Adversary,
Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called
Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of
Darkness safely in her arms. She found a bassinet and laid him down in it.
He gurgled. She gave him a tickle.
        -- The antichrist is born
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Mr Young hadn't had to quiet a screaming baby for years. He'd never been
much good at it to start with. He'd always respected Sir Winston Churchill,
and patting small versions of him on the bottom had always seemed
ungracious.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


The ducks in St James's Park are so used to being fed bread by secret
agents meeting clandestinely that they have developed their own Pavlovian
reaction. Put a St James's Park duck in a laboratory cage and show it a
picture of two men -- one usually wearing a coat with a fur collar, the
other something sombre with a scarf -- and it'll look up expectantly.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


A man threw himself through the window, a knife between his teeth, a
Kalashnikov anutomatic rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other. "I glaim
gis oteg in der gaing og der --" he paused. He tooke the knife out of his
teeth and began again.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


- "Surely you have considered terrorist activity?"
There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of
someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise
chickens somewhere, "Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some
terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its
can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a
thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite *strong*
terrorists. Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions
in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours."
        -- The BBC interviews a nuclear spokesperson
           (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Jaime had never realised that trees made a sound when they grew, and no-one
else had realised it either, because the sound is made over hundreds of
years in waves of twenty-four hours from peak to peak. Speed it up, and
the sound a tree makes is *vrooom*.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


... walking like a man carrying a thermos flask of something that might
cause, if he dropped it or even thought about dropping it, the sort of
explosion that impels grey-beards to make statements like "And where this
crater is now, once stood the city of Wah-Shing-Ton", in SF B-movies.
        --  Crowley gets out the Holy Water
            (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Our garden was debated territory between five local cats, and we'd heard
that the best way to keep other cats out of the garden was to have one
yourself. A moment's rational thought here will spot the slight flaw in
this reasoning.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)


Boot-faced cats aren't born but made, often because they've tried to
outstare or occasionally rape a speeding car and have been repaired by a
vet who just pulled all the bits together and stuck the stitches in where
there was room.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)


Cats don't hunt seals. They would if they knew what they were and where to
find them. But they don't, so that's all right.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)


It's an interesting fact that fewer than 17 % of Real cats end their lives
with the same name they started with. Much family effort goes into
selecting one at the start ("She looks like a Winnifred to *me*"), and the
as the years roll by it suddenly finds itself being called Meepo or Ratbag.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)


Next comes the realist phase ("After all, from a purely geometrical point
of view a cat is only a tube with a door at the top.").
        -- Getting Real cats to take medication can be a problem
           (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)


Everyone's heard of Erwin Schrodinger's famous thought experiment. You put
a cat in a box with a bottle of poison, which many people would suggest is
about as far as you need to go.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)


Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies,
worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the
environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of the planet's large
animals, and suddenly tiny versions of one of the worst of them wanders
into the cave and starts to purr.
        -- Why humans like cats
           (Terry Pratchett, The Unadulterated Cat)


Thunder rolled. ... It rolled a six.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


Granny's remedies, made from simple, honest, and generally nearly poisonous
herbs and roots, were amazing things. After one dose of stomache-ache
jollop, you made sure you never complained of stomach ache ever again. In
its way, it was a sort of cure.
        -- No, not that Granny. The other one.
           (Terry Pratchett, Truckers)


"No, no, no, what you do is, you get a gnu, then you point it at the driver
and someone says, 'Look out, he's got a gnu!' and you say, 'Take us where
we want to go or I'll fire this gnu at you!'"
        -- "Host Age at 10,000 Feet", Nome style
            (Terry Pratchett, Truckers)


The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist
on coming along and trying to put things in it.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Diggers)


- "Do you know, humans think the world was made by a sort of big human?"
- "Get away?"
- "It took a week."
- "I expect it had some help, then,' said Dorcas.
        -- The Nomes discuss religion
           (Terry Pratchett, Diggers)


On the fifth day the Governor of the town called all the tribal chieftains
to an audience in the market square, to hear their grievances. He didn't
always do anything about them, but at least they got *heard*, and he nodded
a lot, and everyone felt better about it at least until they got home. This
is politics.
        -- Carpet politics are very similar to Discworld politics
           (Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People)


"He's a man of few words, and he doesn't know what either of them mean,"
people said, but not when he was within hearing.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People)


"My house is your house", his brow suddenly furrowed and he looked worried,
"although only in a metaphorical sense, you understand, because I would
not, much as I always admired your straightforward approach, and indeed
your forthright stance, actually *give* you my house, it being the only
house I have, and therefore the term is being extended in an, as it were,
gratuitous fashion --"
Owlglass was clearly having some trouble getting to the end of the sentence.
        -- Carpet philosophers at work
           (Terry Pratchett, The Carpet People)


She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about
romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that
talked about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if
ever the occasion presented itself she dismissed them as only romance and
knitting in a new form.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)


Bad spelling can be lethal. For example, the greedy Seriph of Al-Yabi was
cursed by a badly-educated deity and for some days everything he touched
turned to Glod, which happened to be the name of a small dwarf from a
mountain community hundreds of miles away who found himself magically
dragged to the kingdom and relentlessly duplicated. Some two thousand Glods
later the spell wore off. These days, the people of Al-Yabi are renowned
for being remarkably short and bad-tempered.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


"Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the
sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and
shouting 'All gods are bastards'."
        -- Rincewind discussing Twoflower
           (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)


There was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A
direct hit by a meteorite, for example, would count as gentrification.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)


"They say there's dwarf mines under the Ramtops," she said
inconsequentially. "My, but them little buggers is in for a surprise."
        -- Granny reflects on Esk's methods of lighting a fire.
           (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)


"Right, you bastards, you're... you're geography"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


"Oh, a very useful philosophical animal, your average tortoise. Outrunning
metaphorical arrows, beating hares in races... very handy."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


- "Therefore I will have dinner sent in," said the priest. "It will be
   roast chicken."
- "I hate chicken."
Dios smiled. "No sire. On wednesdays the King always enjoys chicken, sire."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)


I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on
the covers... this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


Botswana is also the only country in the world with a colour in its flag
meant to represent rain (a sort of blue-grey). Not many people know this.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


1) I have never waved a hankie in anger
2) I do not peronally know any Morris dancers
3) But Morris dancing is kind of funny and weird at the same time.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


There are *no* inconsistencies in the Discworld books; ocassionally, however,
there are alternate pasts.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


One day I'll be dead and THEN you'll all be sorry.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


Any town built by filling a mud hole with sawdust and proudly having a slug
as a sort of civic totem is a town, one feels, where Rincewind would feel
right at home.
        -- Terry looks forward to his visit to Seattle, USA.
           (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


Somehow, trying to get Granny Weatherwax and 'panty raid' into the same
sentence is beyond me.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


I'm sure we can arrange an academic scholarship for Detritus. Troll
cheerleaers would be nice: 'Two... four.... er..  many... lots'.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


Experience has taught me that you feel better on a flight if you avoid
chicken fat in plastic sauce.
        -- The joys of travelling the world by plane
           (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


I stroll along, talk, I sign books, people buy me drinks, I forget where my
hotel is, I get lost and fall into some local body of water... done it
hundreds of times.
        -- Going to a convention is fun!
           (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


I've always thought the Patrician is a party animal. Can you imagine
waking up next day and remembering all those witty things you said and did,
and then realising that he was listening?
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


It's an old magical principle -- it's even filtered down into RPG systems
-- that magic, while taking a lot of effort, can be 'stored' -- in a staff,
for example.  No doubt a wizard spends a little time each day charging up
his staff, although you go blind if you do it too much, of course.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


Take One ticket to New Orleans
Take One cab to Bourbon Street
Take steps to the counter of the all night frozen dacquiri shop.
Take One Large Cupful.
        -- Terry's recipe for the Ultimate Banana Dacquiri
           (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


Q: Terry, what the heck was going on at the end of Strata? I've just
re-read the ending *again* and come up with another possible explanation
which takes the total number into double figures.

A: See? Other people would just have given you one or two. Amazing value, I
think.
        -- (Terry Pratchett & Somebody On The Net, alt.fan.pratchett)


3) I don't sign parts of the body, even if they're still attached.
        -- From Terry's Rules of Book Signing
           (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


It's not Brits who think American readers are a bunch of whinging morons
with the geo-social understanding of a wire coathanger, it's *American*
editors.
        -- Setting the record straight
           (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


I don't think I've ever been critical of the money Douglas Adams makes,
especially since, as has been tactfully pointed out, I myself have had to
change banks having filled the first one up.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)


*No-one* liked the Joshua N'Clement block. There were two schools of
thought about what should be done with it. The people who lived there
thought everyone should be taken out en then the block should be blown up,
and the people who lived *near* the block just wanted it blown up.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


There was a new library in the Civic Centre. It was so new it didn't even
have librarians. It had Assistant Information Officers.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


Johnny had seen films of American shopping malls. They must have different
sorts of people in America, he'd thought. They all looked cool, all the
girls were beautiful, and the place wasn't crowded with little kamikaze
grandmothers.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


"You've got a lot of time for abstract thought when you've got your hand
stuck up a dead badger."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


The figures the telescope was producing were all that was left of an
exploding star twenty million years ago. A billion small rubbery things on
two planets who had been getting on with life in a quiet sort of way had
been totally destroyed, but they were certainly helping Adrian get his
Ph.D. and, who knows, they might have thought it all worthwhile if anyone
had asked them.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


"I believe it's very hard to have fun in Iceland without fish being
involved in some way."
        -- Looking for a good place to party
           (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


- "America?" said Mrs Liberty. "Won't we get scalped?"
- "Good grief, no!" said William Stickers, who was a bit more up to date
   about the world.
- "*Probably* not," said Mr Fletcher, who had been watching the news lately
   and was even more up to date than William Stickers.
        -- Still looking for a good place to party
           (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


Sergeant Comely was working on the general assumption that where you got
lots of people gathered together, something illegal was bound to happen
sooner or later.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead)


For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to
(a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)


In retrospect, Victor was always a little unclear about those next few
minutes. That's the way it goes. The moments that change your life are
the ones that happen suddenly, like the one where you die.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)


No matter what she did with her hair it took about three minutes for it to
tangle itself up again, like a garden hosepipe in a shed [Which, no matter
how carefully coiled, will always uncoil overnight and tie the lawnmower to
the bicycles].
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


He married that Palliard girl, remember? The one with the air-cooled teeth?
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


And the child had a permanently runny nose and ought to be provided with a
handkerchief or, failing that, a cork.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


It was here that the thaum, hitherto believed to be the smallest possible
particle of magic, was succesfully demonstrated to be made up of /resons/
(Lit.: 'Thing-ies') or reality fragments. Currently research indicates that
each reson is itself made up of a combination of at least five 'flavours',
known as 'up', 'down', 'sideways', 'sex appeal' and 'peppermint'.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


A heap of discarded garments by the bed suggested that Verence had mastered
the art of hanging up clothes as practised by half the population of the
world, and that he had equally had difficulty with the complex topological
manoeuvres necessary to turn the socks the right way out.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Chain-mail isn't much defence against an arrow. It certainly isn't when the
arrow is being aimed between your eyes.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


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, Lords and Ladies)


The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really
cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a
novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo,
my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct
answer is: Hey, whatever I select.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)


Mrs. Nugent was the Johnson's next door neighbour, and known to be
unreasonable on subjects like Madonna played at full volume at 3 a.m.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the dead)


"Why bother with such a big stone arch?"
"It's just showing off. There's probably a sticker on the back saying 'My
Other Grave Is A Porch'".
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the dead)


Granddad was superstitious about books. He thought that if you had enough
of them around, education leaked out, like radioactivity.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the dead)


"Are you a physicist?"
"Me? I don't know anything about science!"
"Marvellous! Ideal qualification!"
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the dead)


Suicide was against the law. Johnny had wondered why. It meant that if you
missed, or the gas ran out, or the rope broke, you could get locked up in
prison to show you that life was really very jolly and thoroughly worth
living.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the dead)


Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance
against any decent swordmanship, but on his side was the fact that
it is almost impossible to develop decent swordmanship when you seem
to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)


Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that
cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just
comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


The Omnians were a God-fearing people. They had a great deal to fear.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


The people who really run organizations are usually found several
levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the autority turned.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Most gods find it hard to walk and think at the same time.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


When the least they could do to you was everything, then the most
they could do to you suddenly held no terror.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"What's a philosopher ?" said Brutha.
"Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting,"
said a voice in his head.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Slave is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for slave," said
Vorbis.
"So I understand," said the Tyrant. "I imagine that fish have no
word for water."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something
to aim at."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"You're not one of us."
"I don't think I'm one of them, either," said Brutha. "I'm one of
mine."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Simony's eyes gleamed with the gleam of a man who had seen the
future and found it covered with armour plating.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"All holy piety in public, and all peeled grapes and self-indulgence
in private."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards
quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow's-point-
of-view is seldom necessary.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering
around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking
Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's all because dozens of other
poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Why do you bother with him? He's had thousands of people killed!"
"Yes, but perhaps he thought that you wanted it."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in
religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it
for a god).
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy, but they were
listening in gibberish.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"He's muffed it," said Simony. "he could have done *anything* with
them. And he just told them the facts. You can't inspire people with
facts. They need a cause. They need a symbol."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"You can't find a hermit to teach you herming, because of course that
rather spoils the whole thing."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Om began to feel the acute depression that steals over every realist
in the presence of an optimist.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"All the other prophets came back with commandments!"
"Where they get them?"
"I ... suppose they made them up."
"You get them from the same place."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Brutha tried to nod, and thought: I'm on everyone's side. It'd be
nice if, just for once, someone was on mine.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to
death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the
creator was a traditional method of patent protection.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world.
It's unreliable levers that are the problem.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"Now we've got a truth to die for!"
"No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious
to die for."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
"Yes. Yes, of course."
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"I used to think that *I* was stupid, and then I met philosophers."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone
distrusts," said Brutha. "That way, everyone's happy."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place.
One minute it's all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling
Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There's No one There to Hear It, and
then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says,
Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to
shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting
demonstration of optical principles."
        -- The many and varied advantages of philosophy
           (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


"The significant owl hoots in the night."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)


Mrs Evadne Cake was a medium, verging on small.
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)