Top 500 Terry Pratchett Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.”

— Terry Pratchett

402. “Never build a dungeon you wouldn’t be happy to spend the night in yourself. The world would be a happier place if more people remembered that.”

— Terry Pratchett

403. “You know what I’d really, really like? What I’d pay MONEY for? A ZX81 with a disc drive. I understood the ZX81. It was so easy to interface stuff to it.”

— Terry Pratchett

404. “I had a deprived childhood, you see. I had lots of other kids to play with and my parents bought me outdoor toys and refused to ill-treat me, so it never occurred to me to seek solitary consolation with a good book.”

— Terry Pratchett

405. “I reckon responsible behavior is something to get when you grow older. Like varicose veins.”

— Terry Pratchett

406. “The man gave a shrug which indicated that, although the world did indeed have many problems, this was one of them that was not his.”

— Terry Pratchett

407. “Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it were something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you.”

— Terry Pratchett

408. “Tragic heroes always moan when the gods take an interest in them, but it’s the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals.”

— Terry Pratchett

409. “Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.”

— Terry Pratchett

410. “But in his experience it was only a matter of time before the normal balance of the universe restored itself and started doing the usual terrible things to him.”

— Terry Pratchett

411. “Who shall I shoot? You choose. Now, listen very carefully: where’s your coffee? You’ve got coffee, haven’t you? C’mon, everyone’s got coffee! Spill the beans!”

— Terry Pratchett

412. “Someone out there was about to find that their worst nightmare was a maddened Librarian. With a badge.”

— Terry Pratchett

413. “I’m up to my neck in the real world, every day. Just you try doing your VAT return with a head full of goblins.”

— Terry Pratchett

414. “Magrat had used a lot of powder to make her face pale and interesting. It combined with the lavishly applied mascara to give the guard the impression that he was looking at two flies that had crashed into a sugar bowl.”

— Terry Pratchett

415. “I express preference for a chronological sequence of events which precludes a violence.”

— Terry Pratchett

416. “Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they’re lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.”

— Terry Pratchett

417. “I know it’s a very human thing to say ‘Is there anything I can do,’ but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.”

— Terry Pratchett

418. “Soon to come in licorice, orange, cinnamon, and banana, but not strawberry, because I hate strawberries.”

— Terry Pratchett

419. “Once you gave a thing a name, you gave it life.”

— Terry Pratchett

420. “A push-and-go wooden duck on wheels can cause quite a lot of damage if wielded with enough force.”

— Terry Pratchett

421. “Even a really bad creator would at least have started with Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Surprise.”

— Terry Pratchett

422. “It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimers, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimers.”

— Terry Pratchett

423. “You have so many sources to draw on when you’re a fantasy writer.”

— Terry Pratchett

424. “Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.”

— Terry Pratchett

425. “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 treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide.”

— Terry Pratchett

426. “Sometimes you can think that ‘I’ve had enough of wizards!’ And sometimes fantasy is not just about wizards.”

— Terry Pratchett

427. “Corporal Nobbs had been disqualified from the human race for shoving.”

— Terry Pratchett

428. “Many feel they are called to the priesthood, but what they really hear is an inner voice saying, ‘It’s indoor work with no heavy lifting, do you want to be a ploughman like your father?’”

— Terry Pratchett

429. “It’s tough at the top. It’s tough at the bottom. But in between you could use them for horse-shoes.”

— Terry Pratchett

430. “No real sunrise could paint the sky Surgical Appliance Pink.”

— Terry Pratchett

431. “Raising the flag and singing the anthem are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason.”

— Terry Pratchett

432. “Do you think it’s possible for an entire nation to be insane?”

— Terry Pratchett

433. “It is said that the Devil has all the best tunes. This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers.”

— Terry Pratchett

434. “Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o’course.”

— Terry Pratchett

435. “In order to have a change of fortune at the last minute, you have to take your fortune to the last minute.”

— Terry Pratchett

436. “Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.”

— Terry Pratchett

437. “Of course, Ankh-Morpork’s citizens had always claimed that the river water was incredibly pure. Any water that had passed through so many kidneys, they reasoned, had to be very pure indeed.”

— Terry Pratchett

438. “Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.”

— Terry Pratchett

439. “Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn’t always beat actual thought.”

— Terry Pratchett

440. “There are thousands of good reasons why magic doesn’t rule the world. They’re called Witches and Wizards.”

— Terry Pratchett

441. “Oh, come on. Revelation was a mushroom dream that belonged in the Apocrypha. The New Testament is basically about what happened when God got religion.”

— Terry Pratchett

442. “What’s the good of having mastery over cosmic balance and knowing the secrets of fate if you can’t blow something up?”

— Terry Pratchett

443. “Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: ‘Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?’”

— Terry Pratchett

444. “Yes, sir, thank you, sir, and I wouldn’t trust me one little inch, sir. I knows a bad one when I sees them. I have a mirror.”

— Terry Pratchett

445. “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

446. “I must confess the activities of the UK governments for the past couple of years have been watched with frank admiration and amazement by Lord Vetinari. Outright theft as a policy had never occurred to him.”

— Terry Pratchett

447. “Nothing has to be true forever. Just for long enough, to tell you the truth.”

— Terry Pratchett

448. “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

449. “If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship.”

— Terry Pratchett

450. “Incidentally, it’s best not to argue with the nursing staff. I find the best course of action is to throw some chocolates in one direction and hurry off in the other while their attention is distracted.”

— Terry Pratchett