Top 500 Terry Pratchett Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “Sergeant Colon of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard was on duty. He was guarding the Brass Bridge, the main link between Ankh and Morpork. From theft. When it came to crime prevention, Sergeant Colon found it safest to think big.”

— Terry Pratchett

452. “The people who guard the rainbow don’t like those who get in the way of the sun.”

— Terry Pratchett

453. “Light died in the west. Night and tears took the Nation. The star of Water drifted among the clouds like a murderer softly leaving the scene of the crime.”

— Terry Pratchett

454. “Probably the last sound heard before the Universe folded up like a paper hat would be someone saying, ‘What happens if I do this?’”

— Terry Pratchett

455. “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

456. “Gods don’t like people not doing much work. People who aren’t busy all the time might start to think.”

— Terry Pratchett

457. “The key to winning, as always, was looking as if you had every right, nay, duty to be where you were. It helped if you could also suggest in every line of your body that no one else had any rights to be doing anything, anywhere, whatsoever.”

— Terry Pratchett

458. “Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear we might not be.”

— Terry Pratchett

459. “We’re on a mission from Glod.”

— Terry Pratchett

460. “The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.”

— Terry Pratchett

461. “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal often offends, I read somewhere.”

— Terry Pratchett

462. “The girls were expected to grow up to be somebody’s wife. They were also expected to read and write, those being considered soft indoor jobs that were too fiddly for the boys.”

— Terry Pratchett

463. “Truly, he thought, the way of enlightenment is like unto half a mile of broken glass.”

— Terry Pratchett

464. “Granny Weatherwaz was a witch. That was quite acceptable in the Ramtops, and no one had a bad word to say about witches. At least, not if he wanted to wake up in the morning the same shape as he went to bed.”

— Terry Pratchett

465. “Cake is not the issue here.”

— Terry Pratchett

466. “The important thing about adventures, thought Mr. Bunnsy, was that they shouldn’t be so long as to make you miss mealtimes.”

— Terry Pratchett

467. “It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.”

— Terry Pratchett

468. “Mr. Tulip lived his life on that thin line most people occupy just before they haul off and hit someone repeatedly with a wrench.”

— Terry Pratchett

469. “It was raining in the small, mountainous country of Llamedos. It was always raining in Llamedos. Rain was the country’s main export. It had rain mines.”

— Terry Pratchett

470. “And we don’t often get any wading birds in the River Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it’s easier for them to walk on the surface.”

— Terry Pratchett

471. “This wasn’t food – it was what food became if it had been good and gone to food heaven.”

— Terry Pratchett

472. “Oh dear me, the Booker people don’t like me. I don’t care. I have been given an award for being taken not seriously, and I am very, very pleased about that.”

— Terry Pratchett

473. “The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.”

— Terry Pratchett

474. “Winners never talk about glorious victories. Thats because they’re the ones who see what the battle field looks like afterwards. Its only the losers who have glorious victories.”

— Terry Pratchett

475. “Any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough to realize 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.”

— Terry Pratchett

476. “Her singing always cheered him up. Life seemed so much brighter when she stopped.”

— Terry Pratchett

477. “It’s actually true that I keep myself going by constantly promising myself that in response for the hard work I will be allowed to do some more hard work later on.”

— Terry Pratchett

478. “So much paperwork to read! So much paperwork to push away! So much paperwork to pretend he hadn’t received and that might have been eaten by gargoyles.”

— Terry Pratchett

479. “Never trust a species that grins all the time. It’s up to something.”

— Terry Pratchett

480. “And the people next door oppress me all night long. I tell them, I work all day, a man’s got to have some time to learn to play the tuba. That’s oppression, that is. If I’m not under the heel of the oppressor, I don’t know who is.”

— Terry Pratchett

481. “I’ve got wide tastes, but I don’t like jazz.”

— Terry Pratchett

482. “It is possible to live well with dementia and write best-sellers ’like wot I do.”

— Terry Pratchett

483. “Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.”

— Terry Pratchett

484. “People whose concept of ancient history is the first series of Star Trek may be treated with patience, because it’s usually not their fault they were reduced to getting their education from school.”

— Terry Pratchett

485. “Inside every lump of coal there’s a diamond waiting to get out.”

— Terry Pratchett

486. “By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.”

— Terry Pratchett

487. “After you’ve been working fairly intensively on a novel for six months you never want to see the damn thing again.”

— Terry Pratchett

488. “We’ve got a lot of experience of not having any experience.”

— Terry Pratchett

489. “Smaller-than-Medium-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock.”

— Terry Pratchett

490. “I was merely endeavoring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat. -Lord Vetinari.”

— Terry Pratchett

491. “Belief was never mentioned at home, but right actions were taught by daily example.”

— Terry Pratchett

492. “A good plan isn’t one where someone wins, it’s where nobody thinks they’ve lost.”

— Terry Pratchett

493. “The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.”

— Terry Pratchett

494. “It takes a special kind of person to fight back.”

— Terry Pratchett

495. “You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap.”

— Terry Pratchett

496. “Crivens!”

— Terry Pratchett

497. “Wikipedia, eh? Must be accurate then!”

— Terry Pratchett

498. “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

499. “I don’t see why it matters what is written. Not when it’s about people. It can always be crossed out.”

— Terry Pratchett

500. “Although she was aware that somewhere under her complicated strata of vests and petticoats there was some skin, that didn’t mean to say she approved of it.”

— Terry Pratchett