Discworld Quotes

Doesn't it change history even if you just tread on an ant?" -- Sam Vimes
"For the ant, certainly." -- Sweeper (Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, p. 240)

"He always had an allergy to edged weapons too near his face." -- Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, p. 224

"The Patrician always put Ridcully in mind of a predatory flamingo if you could find a flamingo that was black and had the patience of a rock." -- Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, p. 95

"He was certain he was anorectic, because every time he looked in a mirror he saw a fat man. It was the Archchancellor, standing behind him and shouting at him." -- Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

"His business was the separation of the wheatgerm of the soul from the chaff of the mortal body." -- Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, p. 145

"People never told the Archchancellor to shut up. Shutting up was something that happened to other people." -- Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, p. 228

"They buried you alive just because you [w]ere dead." -- Doreen (Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett), p. 277

"What's the good of having mastery over cosmic balance and knowing the secrets of fate if you can't blow something up?" -- Dean (Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett), p. 305

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away -- until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence." -- Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, p. 317

"No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." -- Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett, 321

Inside every living person is a dead person waiting to get out." -- Reg Shoe (Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett), p.349

"That man held up his thumbs and winked."
"Maybe he wanted a date."
"In Ankh-Morpork that means Jolly Good. In Klatch it means I Hope Your Donkey Explodes."
"Why would he want to say Jolly Good to us?"
"Or hate our donkey so much?" (Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett)

"There's a grate in the ceiling."
"Not big enough to fit through."
"No but we could hang ourselves."
"I'm told that's a very painful way to die." -- Polly
"Who by?" (Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett)

"I always thought that twins is two little souls born once, not one born twice," -- Nanny Ogg (Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett) p. 252

"Chaos is order in a mask." -- Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, p. 279

"When you look into the abyss, it's not supposed to wave back," -- Terry Pratchett (Thief of Time pg. 59)

Buddy: "Who's the most famous horn player there ever was, Glod?"
Glod: "Brother Charnel. Everyone knows that. He stole the alter gold from the Temple of Offler and had it made into a horn and played magical music until the gods caught up with him and pulled his..."
Buddy: "Right, but if you went out there now and asked who the most famous horn player is, would they remember some felonious monk or would they shout for Glod Glodsson?" -- Soul Music by Terry Pratchett, p. 212

"He gripped his knife at waist height. No one who knew anything about knives ever used the famous overarm stabbing motion so beloved of illustrators. It was amateurish and inefficient. A professional would strike upward; the way to a man's heart was through his stomach." -- Terry Pratchett (Soul Music) p. 270

"The man was clearly as mad as a spoon, writing notes that he wanted to keep secrets from the Chicken. Sometimes he'd stop writing in midnote if he thought the Chicken was watching [...] and that was his life: one huge oblong of canvas; Methodia Rascal, born, painted famous picture, thought he was a chicken, died." -- Thud! by Terry Pratchett

"Alcohol didn't seem to go to her brain at all. It could be that it couldn't find it." -- Thud! by Terry Pratchett

"Everyone wants something from Vimes, even though I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Hell, I'm probably a spoon." -- Sam Vimes (Thud! by Terry Pratchett)

"Name me one thing that's going on that you don't know about." -- Colon (Thud! by Terry Pratchett)

"This is Art holding a Mirror up to life. That's why everything is exactly the wrong way round." -- Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, page 283

"This was because the kingdom did not, in so many words, move through time in the normal flickering sky, high speed photography sense of the word. It moved around it, which is much cleaner, considerably easier to achieve, and saves all that traveling around trying to find a laboratory opposite a dress shop that will keep the same dummy in the window for sixty years." -- Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, page 205

"And they were all as self-centered as a spinning top." -- Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, page 164

"The dead shouldn't kill the living. [...] We'd all be outnumbered for one thing." -- Granny Weatherwax (Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, page 153

"'It's been here a long time,' said Granny. 'So's everywhere,' said Nanny, and added, with the air of a lifetime student, 'Everywhere's been where it is since it was first put there. It's called geography.'" -- Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, page 119

"Particles of raw inspiration sleet through the universe all the time. Every once in a while one of them hits a receptive mind, which then invents DNA or the flute sonata form or a way to make light bulbs wear out in half the time. But most of them miss. Most people go through their lives without getting hit by even one. Some people are even more unfortunate. They get them all." -- Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, page 77

"And he did lay down his life for us," -- Sacharissa
"Yes, but then he picked it up again!" -- Mr. GoodMountain (The Truth by Terry Pratchett)

."Didn't you say a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on?" -- Boddony
"But it is the TRUTH," -- William de Worde
"So? Where's its boots?" -- Boddony (The Truth by Terry Pratchett)

"Do you know what they call a sausage-in-a-bun in Quirm?" -- Mr. Pin
"No?" -- Mr. Tulip
"They call it le sausage-in-le-bun," -- Mr. Pin
"They ought to call it a sausage dans lar derriere," -- Mr. Tulip (The Truth by Terry Pratchett)

"Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle." -- Terry Pratchett (Thief of Time page 37)

"The arrow shot straight into the air and failed to hit anything, especially a duck," -- Terry Pratchett (Monstrous Regiment)

"I live in the city. I know a sparrow from a starling. Everything else is a duck as far as I'm concerned," -- William de Worde (Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett)

"Never talk to people who write things down. Military Rule," -- Jackrum (Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett)

"One of the pigeons lazily opened one eye and said 'lelulola' which is pigeon for deh?" -- Terry Pratchett (Monstrous Regirment)

"But words that can be taken apart and used to make other words...well, that's just downright dangerous," -- Hughnon (The Truth by Terry Pratchett)

"It wasn't that he had a drug habit. He WANTED to have a drug habit. What he HAD was a stupidity habit, which cut in whenever he found anything being sold in little bags, and this had resulted in Mr. Tulip seeking heaven in flour, salt, baking powder, and pickled beef sandwiches," -- Terry Pratchett (The Truth)