Welcome to a treasure trove of wit, wisdom, and whimsy brought to you by none other than the master wordsmith himself, Terry Pratchett. As one of the most beloved and prolific authors of our time, Pratchett crafted fantastical worlds where satire danced with imagination, and humor was a beacon guiding readers through the complexities of life. His discworld series, in particular, stands as a testament to his unparalleled ability to blend fantasy with sharp social commentary, leaving readers both enchanted and enlightened.
Within these pages, you’ll find a collection of Terry Pratchett’s most memorable quotes, each a gem sparkling with insight, humor, and a touch of the absurd. From the quirky inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork to the profound observations on the human condition, Pratchett’s words resonate with readers of all ages and backgrounds. Whether you’re seeking inspiration, a chuckle, or simply a moment of reflection, these quotes offer a glimpse into the brilliant mind of a literary giant whose influence continues to be felt long after his passing.
So, without further ado, dive into the world of Terry Pratchett’s quotes below, where laughter and wisdom intertwine to illuminate the path of imagination and understanding.
Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent. Terry Pratchett
Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. Terry Pratchett
I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first. Terry Pratchett
I think I work much harder on the children’s books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I’ve never been quite certain why this is. Terry Pratchett
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages. Terry Pratchett
Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am. Terry Pratchett
I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it. Terry Pratchett
Neither of my parents went to church, but they did everything that you needed to do to be Christian. That’s something a Quaker would call an intimation of the divine. Terry Pratchett
The thing is, ‘Discworld’ had been going on for a very long time, and I’ve written children’s books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I’d do is I’d franchise it to myself. Terry Pratchett
I became a journalist at 17. A few hours later, I saw my first dead body, which was somewhat… colourful. That’s when I learned you can go on throwing up after you run out of things to throw up. Terry Pratchett
Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page. Terry Pratchett
If you are going to write, say, fantasy – stop reading fantasy. You’ve already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you’re going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit. Terry Pratchett
It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer’s, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer’s. Terry Pratchett
I think we are waiting for an e-book that even non-techies can be comfortable with. From my point of view, the biggest change is that I don’t have to spend most of the day printing out and packaging a manuscript. I think I almost miss that. Terry Pratchett
If it wasn’t for the fun and money, I really don’t know why I’d bother. Terry Pratchett
‘Discworld’ is taking something that you know is ridiculous and treating it as if it is serious, to see if something interesting happens when you do so. Terry Pratchett
I don’t believe in the war god of the Israelites. He’s a bogeyman. Jesus preached the golden rule, by and large. Terry Pratchett
The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably ‘Doctor Who.’ What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe. Terry Pratchett
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. Terry Pratchett
This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic. Terry Pratchett
Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong. Terry Pratchett
‘Nation’ was one that I’d have killed myself if I hadn’t written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul. Terry Pratchett
We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we have forgotten how to die. Too often we learn the hard way. As soon as the baby boomers pass pensionable age, their lesson will be harsher still. Terry Pratchett
Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil… prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon. Terry Pratchett
I’m not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We’re not ‘celebrities’, whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They’re what people meet. Terry Pratchett
The bravest person I’ve ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style. Terry Pratchett
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. Terry Pratchett
I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn’t theirs. Terry Pratchett
Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care. Terry Pratchett
I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated. Terry Pratchett
I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop. Terry Pratchett
I can no longer type, so I use TalkingPoint and Dragon Dictate. It’s a speech-to-text program, and there’s an add-on for talking which some guys came up with. Terry Pratchett
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up. Terry Pratchett
My advice is this. For Christ’s sake, don’t write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 years old, because the kids who read who are 12 years old are reading books for adults. I read all of the James Bond books when I was about 11, which was approximately the right time to read James Bond books. Terry Pratchett
The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it’s just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress. Terry Pratchett
I particularly admire are Mark Twain and Jerome K. Jerome who wrote in a certain tone of voice which was humane and understanding of humanity, but always ready to annotate its little foibles. I think I’d lay my cards down on that, and say that it’s that that I’m trying to do. Terry Pratchett
It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational – and I’m speaking the written science fiction, not ‘Star Trek.’ Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they’re clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff. Terry Pratchett
It’s useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one. Terry Pratchett
It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living. Terry Pratchett
Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage. Terry Pratchett
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head. Terry Pratchett
There are things around, and I know where they can be got quite easily, but I quite like waking up to the sunshine. Terry Pratchett
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. Terry Pratchett
Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong. Terry Pratchett
Fantasy is uni-age. You can start it in the creche, and it follows you to death. Terry Pratchett
Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along. Terry Pratchett
In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded. Terry Pratchett
I believe it should be possible for someone stricken with a serious and ultimately fatal illness to choose to die peacefully with medical help, rather than suffer. Terry Pratchett
It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God’s waiting room. Terry Pratchett
Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds. Terry Pratchett
It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing. Terry Pratchett
You can’t die with an unfinished book. Terry Pratchett
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it. Terry Pratchett
No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes. Terry Pratchett
Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself. Terry Pratchett
Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life. Terry Pratchett
Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old. Terry Pratchett
Siren voices tell me, ‘You don’t have to keep going on.’ And then you think, ‘I’m a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?’ I don’t know. I like being a writer. Terry Pratchett
Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog. Terry Pratchett
He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting ‘All the Gods are bastards.’ Terry Pratchett
I have to write because if I don’t get something down then after a while I feel it’s going to bang the side of my head off. Terry Pratchett
Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces. Terry Pratchett
The harder I work, the luckier I become. Terry Pratchett
I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science. Terry Pratchett
Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: ‘Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?’ Terry Pratchett
Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I’m fortunate; I can be heard. Regrettably, it’s amazing how people listen if you stand up in public and give away $1 million for research into the disease, as I have done. Terry Pratchett
When you read, I’m sure you don’t realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don’t do that. Terry Pratchett
I like being a writer. Terry Pratchett
When you’re all singing together, it brings things together. I know the songs that my grandfather and my father sang. Terry Pratchett
I mean, I wouldn’t pay more than a couple of quid to see me, and I’m me. Terry Pratchett
You can’t trample infidels when you’re a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look. Terry Pratchett
You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that’s going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake. Terry Pratchett
I must have read every issue of ‘Punch’ published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour – that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like ‘Three Men in a Boat.’ Terry Pratchett
It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death. Terry Pratchett
You can’t remember the plot of the Dr Who movie because it didn’t have one, just a lot of plot holes strung together. It did have a lot of flashing lights, though. Terry Pratchett
I have a living will and I have friends, and I have money and I have hope. Terry Pratchett
Freedom without limits is just a word. Terry Pratchett
I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going. Terry Pratchett
In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is. Terry Pratchett
I know three people who have got better after a brain tumour. I haven’t heard of anyone who’s got better from Alzheimer’s. Terry Pratchett
In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this – death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper. Terry Pratchett
I regarded finding I had a form of Alzheimer’s as an insult and decided to do my best to marshal any kind of forces I could against this wretched disease. I have posterior cortical atrophy or PCA. They say, rather ingenuously, that if you have Alzheimer’s it’s the best form of Alzheimer’s to have. Terry Pratchett
I am a great fan of science, but I cannot do a quadratic equation. Terry Pratchett
I’m glad a genre writer has got a knighthood, but stunned that it was me. Terry Pratchett
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. Terry Pratchett
Tolkien is eminently filmable, I think. ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is intensely… landscaped. But ‘Discworld’ is about dialogue, which is one reason why it might be hard to film. Terry Pratchett
There are some people who hate my guts. But that goes with the territory. Terry Pratchett
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
The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp. Terry Pratchett
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. Terry Pratchett
The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it. Terry Pratchett
Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‘Wind in the Willows’ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‘The Wind in the Willows.’ Terry Pratchett
In my heart, I’m just a kid from the council houses. I can remember the old cottage and my dad coming round with the tin bath. I’m not a rich man. Terry Pratchett
I have, before now, waited for a pen to perform a macro. Terry Pratchett
For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves. Terry Pratchett
The ‘New Testament’, now, I quite liked. Jesus had a lot of good things to say, and as for his father, he must have been highly thought of by the community to work with wood – a material that couldn’t have been widely available in Palestine. Terry Pratchett
I don’t really plan. I’m almost intuitive about things. Terry Pratchett
The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop. Terry Pratchett
I like writing. I get cranky when I can’t. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them. Terry Pratchett
I’m a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there’s very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in ‘I Shall Wear Midnight,’ which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they’re practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don’t fall off. And you try not to use them too often. Terry Pratchett
