Terry Pratchett

“WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato. SQUEAK, he said.Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.”

“Don't do anything I wouldn't do, if you ever find anything I wouldn't do.”

“They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down . . .”

“Es una realidad de la vida el hecho de que todos nos encontramos a uno u otro lado de un muro, de modo que la única solución es olvidarse de él o desarrollar unos dedos resistentes.”

“It was a backwards memory of an event in his future so terrifying that it had generated harmonics of fear all the way along his lifeline.”

“But that was just it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.”

“It was the terror of impermanence, the knowledge that all this would pass away, that a beautiful voice or a wonderful figure was something whose arrival you couldn't control and whose departure you couldn't delay.”

“There have been better attempts at marching, and they have been made by penguins.”

“It took place in the midnight in the University's Great Hall, in a welter of incense, candlesticks, runic inscriptions and magic circles, none of which was strictly necessary but which made the wizards feel better.”

“The Librarian considered matters for a while. So…a dwarf and a troll. He preferred both species to humans. For one thing, neither of them were great readers. The Librarian was, of course, very much in favor of reading in general, but readers in particular got on his nerves. There was something, well, sacrilegious about the way they kept taking books off the shelves and wearing out the words by reading them. He liked people who loved and respected books, and the best way to do that, in the Librarian’s opinion, was to leave them on the shelves where Nature intended them to be.”

“If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged”

“Good so be would you if, duff plum of helping second A," said the Bursar. The table fell silent. "Did anyone understand that?" said Ridcully. The Bursar was not technically insane. He had passed through the rapids of insanity som time previously, and was now sculling around in some peaceful pool on the other side. He was quite often coherent, although not by normal human standards.”

“It as true that normal people couldn't hear Gaspode speak, because dogs don't speak. It's a well know fact....Besides, almost all dogs don't talk. Ones that do are merely a statistical error, and can therefore be ignored.”

“Don't stick your nose where someone can pull it off and eat it.”

“Silverfish: "He disappeared a few years ago.""Disappeared? How? said Cuddy."We think," said Silverfish, leaning closer, "that he found a way of making himself invisible.""Really?""Because," said Silverfish, nodding conspiratorially, "no-one has seen him.”

“They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.”

“The mere fact you're delivering any will help, I'm sure," said Professor Pelc, smiling like a doctor telling a man not to worry, the disease is only fatal in 87 per cent of cases.”

“You can't second-guess ineffability, I always say.”

“Yes," said the skull. "Quit while you're a head, that's what I say.”

“She prowled the city on moonlit nights, and OK, there was the occasional chicken, but she always remembered where she'd been and went round the next day to shove some money under the door. It was hard to be a vegetarian who had to pick bits of meat out of her teeth in the morning. She was definately on top of it, though. It was easy to be a vegetarian by day. It was preventing yourself from becoming a humanitarian at night that took the real effort.”

“It's amazing how good governments are, given their track records in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters. One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarrassed to talk about it. It's not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be abductees. Some have been in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops. The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one - who is big, hairy, and has very large feet. The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.”

“Ach, people are always telling us not to do things" said Rob Anybody, "that's how we ken the most interesting things to do.”

“Mrs. Earwig (pronounced Ar-wige, at least by Mrs. Earwig) believed in shiny wands, and magical amulets and mystic runes and the power of the stars, while Granny Weatherwax in cups of tea, dry biscuits, washing every morning in cold water and, well...mostly she believed in Granny Weatherwax.”

“Many an ancient lord's last words had been, "You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh.”

“It was here that the thaum, hitherto believed to be the smallest possible particle of magic, was succesfully demonstrated to be made up of /resons/ (Lit.: 'Thing-ies') or reality fragments. Currently research indicates that each reson is itself made up of a combination of at least five 'flavours', known as 'up', 'down', 'sideways', 'sex appeal' and 'peppermint'.”

“Ninety percent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.”

“Personal’s not the same as important. People just think it is.”

“Talent just defines what you do...It doesn't define what you are. Deep down, I mean. When you know what you are, you can do anything”

“But the helmet had gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that wore stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association.”

“aware that he had lost some kind of contest but not entirely certain what it was.”

“SOONER OR LATER ALL MEN MUST DIE. EVERYTHING DIES IN THE END. I CAN BE ROBBED BUT NEVER DENIED, I TOLD MYSELF. WHY WORRY? “I too cannot be cheated,” snapped Fate.”

“Fate can be one mean god at times.”

“Those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn’t. She was like that. She didn’t like the clicking of rosaries, but was attracted to the sound of dice. No man knew what She looked like, although there were many times when a man who was gambling his life on the turn of the cards would pick up the hand he had been dealt and stare Her full in the face. Of course, sometimes he didn’t. Among all the gods she was at one and the same time the most courted and the most cursed.”

“Usually he didn’t bother the gods, and he hoped the gods wouldn’t bother him. Life was quite complicated enough.”

“On the Disc the gods dealt severely with atheists.”

“The complete reverse was so often the case that he had come to think of it as a kind of natural law.”

“I’ve seen excitement, and I’ve seen boredom. And boredom was best.”

“It is at this point that normal language gives up, and goes and has a drink.”

“Either dragons should exist completely or fail to exist at all, he felt. A dragon only half-existing was worse than the extremes.”

“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.”

“The flip side of the coin of which Good and Evil are but one side.”

“Fantasy - the ability to envisage the world in many different ways - is one of the skills that makes us human.”

“Колкото и далече да избягашe, човек винаги се настигаше.”

“It was, according to the history books, the fastest coronation since Bubric the Saxon crowned himself with a very pointy crown on a hill during a thunderstorm, and reigned for one and a half seconds.”

“Miss Tick sniffed. 'You could say this advice is priceless,' she said. 'Are you listening?''Yes,' said Tiffany.'Good. Now ... if you trust in yourself ...''Yes?''... and believe in your dreams ...''Yes?''... and follow your star ...' Miss Tick went on.'Yes?''... you'll still get beaten by people who spent THEIR time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.”

“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.”

“The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well.”

“what are you doing here?" he asked."I live here..." I answered sarcastically.”

“But if you must know, your moon here is rather more powerful than the ones around my own world.”“The moon?” said Twoflower. “I don’t under-““If I’ve got to spell it out,” said the troll, testily, “I’m suffering from chronic tides.”

“Monsters are getting more uppity, too (...) I heard where this guy, he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door (...) and you know what? Its mum come and complained. Its actual mum come right down to the hall next day and complained. Actually complained. That's the respect you get.”