Terry Pratchett

“Nanny Ogg never did any housework herself, but she was the cause of housework in other people.”

“Igor?' said Moist. 'You have an Igor?'Oh, yes,' said Hubert. 'That's how I get this wonderful light. They know the secret of storing lightning in jars! But don't let that worry you, Mr Lipspick. Just because I'm employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn't mean I'm some sort of madman, ha ha ha!'Ha ha,' agreed Moist.Ha hah hah!,' said Hubert. 'Hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-'Bent slapped him on the back. Hubert coughed.Sorry about that, it's the air down here,' he mumbled.”

“Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care.”

“Tyrant!”

“And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch.And Tiffany had thought: Where's the evidence?”

“The girls were expected to grow up to be somebody's wife. They were also expected to read and write, those being considered soft indoor jobs that were too fiddly for the boys.”

“I can teach you a lesson you won't forget in a hurry”

“Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole.”

“[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.”

“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.”

“People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and they had to make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.”

“A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.”

“The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”

“Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent protection.”

“The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).”

“There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

“Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.”

“The universe danced towards life. Life was a remarkably common commodity. Anything sufficiently complicated seemed to get cut in for some, in the same way that anything massive enough got a generous helping of gravity. The universe had a definite tendency towards awareness. This suggested a certain subtle cruelty woven into the very fabric of space-time.”

“The disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailor who got funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for the antipodes soon learned that the reason why distant ships sometimes looked as though they were disappearing over the edge of the world was that they were disappearing over the edge of the world.”

“Ankh-Morpork! Pearl of cities! This is not a completely accurate description, of course — it was not round and shiny — but even its worst enemies would agree that if you had to liken Ankh-Morpork to anything, then it might as well be a piece of rubbish covered with the diseased secretions of a dying mollusc.”

“They put it like that?' said Glenda, wide-eyed.'Oh, you know the sort of thing if you read the papers a lot,' said Ponder. 'I seriously think they think that it is their job to calm people down by first of all explaining why they should be overexcited and very worried.”

“The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.”

“It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to 'serve the community' by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get in sideways.”

“No it's not!" said Constable Visit. "Atheism is a denial of a god.""Therefore It Is A Religious Position," said Dorfl. "Indeed, A True Atheist Thinks Of The Gods Constantly, Albeit In Terms of Denial. Therefore, Atheism Is A Form Of Belief. If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Or She Would Not Bother To Deny.”

“You know, I never imagined there were he-dryads. Not even in an oak tree."One of the giants grinned at him.Druellae snorted. "Stupid! Where do you think acorns come from?”

“That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next.”

“It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.”

“Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.”

“It was octarine, the colour of magic. It was alive and glowing and vibrant and it was the undisputed pigment of the imagination, because wherever it appeared it was a sign that mere matter was a servant of the powers of the magical mind. It was enchantment itself.But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of greenish-purple.”

“On the Disc, the Gods aren't so much worshipped, as they are blamed.”

“But I did not return until half past four this morning and I distinctly remember stubbing my toe on the stairs. I am as drunk as a skunk, Drumknott, which of course means skunks are just as drunk as I. I must say the term is unfamiliar to me, and I had not thought hitherto of skunks in this context, but Mustrum Ridcully was kind enough to enlighten me.”

“Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.”

“Contrary to popular belief and hope, people don't usually come running when they hear a scream. That's not how humans work. Humans look at other humans and say, 'Did you hear a scream?' because the first scream might have been you screaming inside your head, or a horse backfiring.”

“We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.'Precisely,' said a passing bush.”

“WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"NO"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN...."Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.”

“Ahh! They're all just pins!”

“Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.”

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”

“Listen, Peaches, trickery is what humans are all about," said the voice of Maurice. "They're so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them.”

“He helped the Librarian up. There was a red glow in the ape's eyes. It had tried to steal his books. This was probably the best proof any wizard could require that the trolleys were brainless.”

“That bit where that lad sprang backwards right across the room with them axes in his hands was impressive, though.""Yeah.""You didn't ought to have stuck your sword out like that, I thought.""He's learned an important lesson.""It won't do him much good now where he's gone.”

“Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.”

“And these are your reasons, my lord?""Do you think I have others?" said Lord Vetinari. "My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent."Hughnon reflected that 'entirely transparent' meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn't see them at all.”

“Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more.”

“Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”

“It wasn't that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.”

“The elevator shaft was a kind of heat sink. Hot food was cold by the time it arrived. Cold food got colder. No one knew what would happen to ice cream, but it would probably involve some rewriting of the laws of thermodynamics.”

“If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

“You just put that sword away, sir, please," said the voice of Lance-Constable Vimes. "You will not shoot me, you young idiot. That would be murder," said the captain calmly. "Not where I'm aiming, sir.”

“That's a nice song," said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time. "It's an old soldiers' song," he said. "Really, sarge? But it's about angels." Yes, thought Vimes, and it's amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It's a real soldiers' song: sentimental, with dirty bits. "As I recall, they used to sing it after battles," he said. "I've seen old men cry when they sing it," he added. "Why? It sounds cheerful." They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You'll learn. I know you will.”