Quotes by Terry Pratchett

Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didnt trust Mothers of Borogravia! and that was from the government. And if you couldnt trust the government, who could you trust?Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...

Men marched away, Vimes. And men marched back. How glorious the battles would have been that they never had to fight!

Fortune favours the brave, sir, said Carrot cheerfully.Good. Good. Pleased to hear it, captain. What is her position vis a vis heavily armed, well prepared and excessively manned armies?Oh, no–ones ever heard of Fortune favouring them, sir.According to General Tacticus, its because they favour themselves, said Vimes. He opened the battered book. Bits of paper and string indicated his many bookmarks. In fact, men, the general has this to say about ensuring against defeat when outnumbered, out–weaponed and outpositioned. It is... he turned the page, Dont Have a Battle.Sounds like a clever man, said Jenkins. He pointed to the yellow horizon.See all that stuff in the air? he said. What do you think that is?Mist? said Vimes.Hah, yes. Klatchian mist! Its a sandstorm! The sand blows about all the time. Vicious stuff. If you want to sharpen your sword, just hold it up in the air.Oh.And its just as well because otherwise youd see Mount Gebra. And below it is what they call the Fist of Gebra. Its a town but theres a bloody great fort, walls thirty feet thick. s like a big city all by itself. s got room inside for thousands of armed men, war elephants, battle camels, everything. And if you saw that, youd want me to turn round right now. Whats your famous general got to say about it, eh?I think I saw something... said Vimes. He flicked to another page. Ah, yes, he says, After the first battle of Sto Lat, I formulated a policy which has stood me in good stead in other battles. It is this: if the enemy has an impregnable stronghold, see he stays there.Thats a lot of help, said Jenkins.Vimes slipped the book into a pocket.So, Constable Visit, theres a god on our side, is there?Certainly, sir.But probably also a god on their side as well?Very likely, sir. Theres a god on every side.Lets hope they balance out, then.

Are we entirely ready, sir? said Lieutenant Hornett, with the special inflection that means We are not entirely ready, sir.We had better be. Glory awaits, gentlemen. In the words of General Tacticus, let us take history by the scrotum. Of course, he was not a very honourable fighter.

And now I demand that you do what the ignorant might feel is the easier thing. You must refrain from dying in battle. Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards. The dead are not your masters.

Now we have travelled a hundred million steps from the Datum, we are finding life systems entirely unlike our own - and yet we still find war. Must it always be so?

History was full of the bones of good men whod followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.

And in a nasty war, wheres the best place to be? Apart from on the moon, o course? No one?Slowly, Jade raised a hand.Go on, then, said the sergeant.In the army, sarge, said the troll. cos... She began to count on her fingers. One, you got weapons an armour an dat. Two, you are surrounded by other armed men. Er... Many, youse gettin paid and gettin better grub than the people in Civilian Street. Er... Lots, ifn you gives up, you getting taken prisner and deres rules about that like Not Kicking Prisners Inna Head and stuff, cos if you kick their prisners inna head theyll kick your prisners inna head so dats, like, youre kickin your own head, but deres no rule say you cant kick enemy civilians inna head. Theres other stuff too, but I ran outa numbers.

There is always a choice. You mean I could choose certain death? A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.

William: Im sure we can all pull together, sir.Vetinari: Oh, I do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.

He said to people: you’re free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he’d been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who’ve seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door...

But...well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and Im pretty sure that whatever happens we wont have found Freedom, and there wont be a whole lot of Justice, and Im damn sure we wont have found Truth. But its just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg.

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...

The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off. A dogs wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but it has its own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. Its like having a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you.

There was this about vampires : they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were... what was the word... deshabille. It meant untidy, but with bags and bags of style.

Youre not allowed to call them dinosaurs any more, said Yo-less. Its speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons.

If I were you, Id sue my face for slander.

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.

Everywheres been where it is ever since it was first put there. Its called geography.

Dont look back! Why not? Because I just did! Run faster!