Terry Pratchett

“That's the Ankh-Morpork instinct, Vimes thought. Run away, and then stop and see if anything interesting is going to happen to other people.”

“There were two ways of looking at the world, but only one when you are starving.”

“[...]sometimes it seemed to him that although the man was the master, which was of course only right and proper, if you watched and listened, you would see that their marriage was like a barge on the river, with the wife being the wind that told the captain which way the barge would sail. Mrs. Mayhew, if not being the wind, certainly knew when to apply the right puff.”

“If they look as though they're worried, we'll move in.''And do what exactly?' said Polly.'Threaten to shoot them,' said Maladict firmly.'And if they don't believe us?''Then we'll threaten to shoot them in a much louder voice,' said Maladict. 'Happy? And I hope to hell they've got some coffee!”

“Ankh-Morpork is a godless city--''I thought it had more than three hundred places of worship?' said Maladict.Strappi stared at him in rage that was incoherent until he managed to touch bottom again. 'Ankh-Morpork is a godawful city', he recovered.”

“And on this dirty night there were appropriately dirty deeds that not even the rain could wash away.”

“That's one form of magic, of course." "What, just knowing things?" "Knowing things that other people don't know.”

“In thirty seconds you will wake up," said Aziraphale, to the entranced ex-nun. "And you will have had a lovely dream about whatever you like best, and—""Yes, yes, fine," sighed Crowley. "Now can we go?”

“There was no universe, anywhere, where a Sam Vimes would give in on this, because if he did then he wouldn't be Sam Vimes anymore.”

“The important thing about being a leader is not being right or wrong but being certain. Of course it helps to be right as well, the Abbot conceeded.”

“Astfgl peered around through the swirling gas clouds. At least he was in the right place. The whole point about the end of the universe was that you couldn’t go past it accidentally.The last few embers winked out. Time and space collided silently, and collapsed.Astfgl coughed. It can get so very lonely, when you’re twenty million light-years from home.“Anyone there?” he said.YES.The voice was right by his ear. Even demon kings can shiver.“Apart from you, I mean,” he said. “Have you seen anybody?”YES.“Who?”EVERYONE.Astfgl sighed. “I mean anyone recently.”IT’S BEEN VERY QUIET, said Death.”

“On the dresser was a row of blue-and-white jars that weren't very useful for anything. They'd been left to her mother by an elderly aunt, and she was proud of them because they looked nice but were completely useless. There was little room on the farm for useless things that looked nice, so they were treasured.”

“Trolls have 5,400 words for rocks and one for vegetation. "Oograah" means everything from moss to giant redwoods. The way trolls see it, if you can't eat it, it's not worth naming it.”

“YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE”

“Some people have inspired whole countries to great deeds because of the power of their vision. And so could he. Not because he dreams about marching hordes, or world domination, or an empire of a thousand years. Just because he thinks that everyone’s really decent underneath and would get along just fine if only they made the effort, and he believes that so strongly it burns like a flame which is bigger than he is. He’s got a dream and we’re all part of it, so that it shapes the world around him. And the weird thing is that no one wants to disappoint him. It’d be like kicking the biggest puppy in the universe. It’s a kind of magic.”

“It was one of the most ancient terrors, the one that meant that no sooner had mankind learned to walk on two legs than it dropped to its knees.”

“Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side!”

“You needed at least three witches for a coven. Two witches was just an argument.”

“And what do you really do?" asked Tiffany. The thin witch hesitated for a moment, and then: "We look to ... the edges," said Mistress Weatherwax. "There's a lot of edges, more than people know. Between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong ... an' they need watchin'. We watch 'em, we guard the sum of things. And we never ask for any reward. That's important.”

“There is a night that never comes to an end....The clock of the world turns under its own shadow. Midnight is a moving place, hurtling around the planet at a thousand miles an hour like a dark knike, cutting slices of daily bread off the endless loaf of Time.”

“Nanny Ogg appreciated fine wine in her very own way. It would never have occurred to Casanunda that anyone would top up white wine with port merely because she'd reached the end of the bottle.”

“If you took the world away and just left the elctricity, it would look like the most exquisite filigree ever made - a ball of twinkling silver lines with the occasional coruscating spike of a satellite beam. Even the dark areas would glow with radar and commercial radio waves. It could be the nervous system of a great beast.”

“I believe in reincarnation,” [Bjorn] said.I KNOW.“I tried to live a good life. Does that help?”THAT’S NOT UP TO ME. Death coughed. OF COURSE... SINCE YOU BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION... YOU’LL BE BJORN AGAIN.”

“Taxation, gentlemen, is very much like dairy farming. The task is to extract the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo.”

“For example, the dwarfs found out how to turn lead into gold by doing it the hard way. The difference between that and the easy way is that the hard way works.”

“That seems to point up a significant difference between Europeans and Americans. A European says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with me?" An American says: "I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?”

“He knew from experience that true and obvious ideas, such as the ineffable wisdom and judgment of the Great God Om, seemed so obscure to many people that you actually had to kill them before they saw the error of their ways...”

“The games we play are lessons we learn. The assumptions we make, things we ignore, and things we change make us what we become.”

“I recall no arrangement, Mau, no bargain, covenant, agreement or promise. There is what happens, and what does not happen. There is no 'should”

“Sometimes it’s like watching a wasp land on a stinging nettle: someone’s going to get stung and you don’t care.”

“Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people," mumbled Sam."Do they?" said Vimes. "Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it?""'cos they torture people.”

“Everyone says it's going to be Snapcase at the palace. He listens to the people.""Yeah, right," said Vimes. And I listen to the thunder. But I don't do anything about it.”

“Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.”

“Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.”

“I'm not a criminal madman,' said Vimes. (...)'Never mind, you'll soon fit in,' said Lawn.”

“Her singing always cheered him up. Life seemed so much brighter when she stopped.”

“Broadly, therefore, the three even now lurching across the deserted planks of the Brass Bridge were dead drunk assassins and the men behind them were bent on inserting the significant comma.”

“The politics of wizardry were either very simple, and resolved by someone ceasing to breathe, or as complex as one ball of yarn in a room with three bright-eyed little kittens.”

“Nutt was young and as such did not have that reverence for age that is had by, mostly, the aged.”

“El futuro contuvo el aliento, a la espera de la decisión de Rincewind.”

“There was a click. There was a noise like a partridge. There was a thud.There was silence.”

“That's Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?”

“Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.”

“Poetic simile was strictly limited to statements like 'his mighty steed was as fleet as the wind on a fairly calm day, say about Force Three,' and any loose talk about a beloved having a face that launched a thousand ships would have to be backed by evidence that the object of desire did indeed look like a bottle of champagne.”

“Sometimes I get nice letters from people who know they're due to meet him (Death) soon, and hope I've got him right.Those are the kind of letters that cause me to stare at the wall for some time.”

“Interest? What's money interested in?' 'More money”

“THERE IS NO JUSTICE" said Death "JUST ME”

“People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh?And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country.So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.”

“After all, when you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.”

“They represented what people called the "international community." And like all uses of the word "community," you were never quite sure what or who it was.”