Quotes by Terry Pratchett

Practically anything can go faster than Disc light, which is lazy and tame, unlike ordinary light. The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you cant have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no cap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. presumably, he said, these must be some elementary particles - kingons, or possibly queons - that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plan to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed.

These were dangerous thoughts, he knew. They were the kind that crept up on a Watchman when the chase was over and it was just you and him, facing one another in that breathless little pinch between the crime and the punishment.And maybe a Watchman had seen civilization with the skin ripped off one time too many and stopped acting like a Watchman and started acting like a normal human being and realized that the click of the crossbow or the sweep of the sword would make all the world so clean.And you couldn’t think like that, even about vampires. Even though they’d take the lives of other people because little lives don’t matter and what the hell can we take away from them?And, too, you couldn’t think like that because they gave you a sword and a badge and that turned you into something else and that had to mean there were some thoughts you couldn’t think.Only crimes could take place in darkness. Punishment had to be done in the light. That was the job of a good Watchman, Carrot always said. To light a candle in the dark.

If Vorbis was right, and there was a kind of light that made darkness visible, then down there was its opposite, the darkness where no light could ever reach: darkness that blackened light, He thought of blind Didactylos and his empty lantern.

You trust him? he said. No, said Hastur. Right, said Ligur. Its be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another.

After all, if you cant trust governments, whom can you trust?

She heard him mutter, Can you take away this grief?Im sorry, she replied. Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.

Tiffany thought of the little spot in the woods where Granny Weatherwax lay. Remembered. And knew that You had been right. Granny Weatherwax was indeed here. And there. She was, in fact, and always would be, everywhere.

Tiffany found her mind filling up with an invisible gray mist, and in that thought there was nothing but grief. She could feel herself trying to push back time, but even the best witchcraft could not do that.

The end of times? said Nanny. Look, Tiff, Esme tol me to say, if you want to see Esmerelda Weatherwax, then just you look around. She is here. Us witches dont mourn for very long. We are satisfied with happy memories - theyre there to be cherished.

Daphne’s thought in Nation: This was no time to go totally mad. You had to maintain standards.

Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?‘Yes. Yes, of course.’Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.

We all think we understand each other, Kin heard Silver say. We eat together, we trade, many of us pride ourselves on having alien friends - but all this is only possible, only possible, Kin, because we do not fully comprehend the other. Youve studied Earth history. Do you think you could understand the workings of of the mind of a Japanese warrior a thousand years ago? But he is as a twin to you compared with Marco, or with myself. When we use the word cosmopolitan we use it too lightly - its flippant, it means were galactic tourists who communicate in superficialities. We dont comprehend. Different worlds, Kin. Different anvils of gravity and radiation and evolution.

We all think we understand each other, Kin heard Silver say. We eat together, we trade, many of us pride ourselves on having alien friends - but all this is only possible, only possible, Kin, because we do not fully comprehend the other. Youve studied Earth history. Do you think you could understand the workings of of the mind of a Japanese warrior a thousand years ago? But he is as a twin to you compare with Marco, or with myself. When we use the word cosmopolitan we use it too lightly - its flippant, it means were galactic tourists who communicate in superficialities. We dont comprehend. Different worlds, Kin. Different anvils of gravity and radiation and evolution.

Who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men? A copper, thats who. (...)You saw how close men lived to the beast. You realized that people like Carcer were not mad. They were incredibily sane. They were simply men without a shield. Theyd looked at the world and realized that all the rules didnt have to apply to them, not if they didnt want them to. They werent fooled by all the little stories. They shook hands with the beast.

Dullness. Only humans could have invented it. What imaginations they had.

Thats Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, theyre the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

Noble dragons dont have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.

Its an unfair world, Child. Be glad you have friends.

Were dealing here, said Vimes, With a twisted mind.Oh, no! You think so?Yes.But... no... you cant be right. Because Nobby was with us all the time.Not Nobby, said Vimes testily. Whatever he might do to a dragon, I doubt if hed make it explode. Theres stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad.Carrots expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror.Gosh, he said.

The Fool held his breath. On long nights on the hard flagstones he had dreamed of women like her. Although, if he really thought about it, not much like her; they were better endowed around the chest, their noses weren’t so red and pointed, and their hair tended to flow more. But the Fool’s libido was bright enough to tell the difference between the impossible and the conceivably attainable, and hurriedly cut in some filter circuits.