Top 500 Terry Pratchett Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”

— Terry Pratchett

52. “She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don’t apply to you.”

— Terry Pratchett

53. “She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.”

— Terry Pratchett

54. “Everyone should occasionally break the law in some small and delightful way. It’s good for the hygiene of the brain.”

— Terry Pratchett

55. “It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”

— Terry Pratchett

56. “It’s vital to remember who you really are. It’s very important. It isn’t a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.”

— Terry Pratchett

57. “The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.”

— Terry Pratchett

58. “Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn’t believing. It’s where belief stops, because it isn’t needed any more.”

— Terry Pratchett

59. “The best research is the research that you don’t know that you are doing.”

— Terry Pratchett

60. “People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people.”

— Terry Pratchett

61. “The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.”

— Terry Pratchett

62. “The universe clearly operates for the benefit of humanity. This can be readily seen from the convenient way the sun comes up in the morning, when people are ready to start the day.”

— Terry Pratchett

63. “Steal five dollars and you’re a common thief. Steal thousands and you’re either the government or a hero.”

— Terry Pratchett

64. “Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.”

— Terry Pratchett

65. “Insanity is catching.”

— Terry Pratchett

66. “Rings try to find their way back to their owner. Someone ought to write a book about it.”

— Terry Pratchett

67. “Despite rumor, Death isn’t cruel – merely terribly, terribly good at his job.”

— Terry Pratchett

68. “Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”

— Terry Pratchett

69. “History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It’s been around a long time.”

— Terry Pratchett

70. “Truth! Freedom! Justice! And a hard-boiled egg!”

— Terry Pratchett

71. “If Not You, Who Else?”

— Terry Pratchett

72. “When you look into the abyss, it’s not supposed to wave back.”

— Terry Pratchett

73. “There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.”

— Terry Pratchett

74. “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’s wrong.”

— Terry Pratchett

75. “You get a wonderful view from the point of no return.”

— Terry Pratchett

76. “Grinning like a necrophiliac in a morgue.”

— Terry Pratchett

77. “I don’t think I’ve drunk enough beer to understand that.”

— Terry Pratchett

78. “Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It’s the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.”

— Terry Pratchett

79. “What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.”

— Terry Pratchett

80. “One day all of us will die but – and this is the important thing – we are not dead yet.”

— Terry Pratchett

81. “Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.”

— Terry Pratchett

82. “I imagine that fish have no word for water.”

— Terry Pratchett

83. “Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you.”

— Terry Pratchett

84. “When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend.”

— Terry Pratchett

85. “But here’s some advice, boy. Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions.”

— Terry Pratchett

86. “Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.”

— Terry Pratchett

87. “You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.”

— Terry Pratchett

88. “The truth is a fog, in which one man sees the heavenly host and the other one sees a flying elephant.”

— Terry Pratchett

89. “All property is theft, except mine.”

— Terry Pratchett

90. “Vimes stalked gloomily through the crowded streets, feeling like the only pickled onion in a fruit salad.”

— Terry Pratchett

91. “Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your own home.”

— Terry Pratchett

92. “We live and learn, or, perhaps more importantly we learn and live.”

— Terry Pratchett

93. “Mort was already aware that love made you feel hot and cold and cruel and weak, but he hadn’t realized that it could make you stupid.”

— Terry Pratchett

94. “Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.”

— Terry Pratchett

95. “Everywhere’s been where it is ever since it was first put there. It’s called geography.”

— Terry Pratchett

96. “Bishops move diagonally. That’s why they often turn up where the kings don’t expect them to be.”

— Terry Pratchett

97. “Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.”

— Terry Pratchett

98. “Not all questions are answered, but fortunately some answers are questioned.”

— Terry Pratchett

99. “I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.”

— Terry Pratchett

100. “The thing about stories is you have to pick the ones that last.”

— Terry Pratchett