Authors:

Terry Pratchett Quotes - Page 34

All Quotes Accidents Adventure Age Arguing Art Atheism Atheist Authority Balance Beer Belief Blame Chaos Character Children Chocolate Choices Coffee Copper Country Crime Darkness Death Dementia Democracy Doubt Dying Effort End Of The World Evil Fate Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Flying Food Football Fun Funeral Funny Genius Geography Giving Gold Goodbye Growing Up Hate Heart Heaven Hell History Home Horror House Humanity Hurt Husband Ignorance Imagination Inspiration Inspirational Jesus Journey Justice Killing Language Leaving Letting Go Life Life And Death Listening Literature Logic Losing Luck Lying Magic Mankind Manners Memories Military Moon Morning Motivational Mountain Observation Opportunity Pain Past Perspective Philosophy Police Pride Progress Purpose Quality Rain Reading Reality Religion Responsibility Romance Running Safety Sanity School Science Science Fiction Silence Sin Singing Sleep Smoking Son Soul Spring Students Stupidity Style Suffering Sunrise Travel Trust Truth Understanding Universe Violence Waiting Wall War Water Wife Winning Work Out Worry Writing
Cats don't hunt seals. They would if they knew what they were and where to find them. But they don't, so that's all right.

Cats don't hunt seals. They would if they knew what they were and where to find them. But they don't, so that's all right.

Terry Pratchett
Cat, Hunts, Ifs
"The Unadulterated Cat". Book by Terry Pratchett, 1989.

I don’t see why it matters what is written. Not when it’s about people. It can always be crossed out.

Terry Pratchett
People, Matter, Good Omens
"Good Omens". Book By Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, 1990.

...it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.

Terry Pratchett
Knowing, Done, Ingredients
FaceBook post by Terry Pratchett from Nov 23, 2016

The storm was really giving it everything it had. This was its big chance. It had spent years hanging around the provinces, putting in some useful work as a squall, building up experience, making contacts, occasionally leaping out on unsuspecting shepherds or blasting quite small oak trees. Now an opening in the weather had given it an opportunity to strut its hour, and it was building up its role in the hope of being spotted by one of the big climates.

Terry Pratchett
Opportunity, Years, Building Up

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended.

Terry Pratchett
Moral Fiber, Evolution Of Man, Trial And Error
Terry Pratchett (2009). “Reaper Man: A Novel of Discworld”, p.9, Harper Collins

Somewhere around the place I've got an unfinished short story about Schrodinger's Dog; it was mostly moaning about all the attention the cat was getting.

Terry Pratchett
Funny, Dog, Cat

They can ta'k our lives but they can never ta'k our freedom!' Now there's a battle cry not designed by a clear thinker

Terry Pratchett
Battle, Cry, Thinker

The best research you can do is to talk to people.

Terry Pratchett
People, Research, Can Do
Source: www.theguardian.com

We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am.

Terry Pratchett
Thinking, Philosopher
Terry Pratchett (2008). “Small Gods: (Discworld Novel 13)”, p.163, Random House

Writing, for me, is a little like wood carving. You find the lump of tree (the big central theme that gets you started), and you start cutting the shape that you think you want it to be. But you find, if you do it right, that the wood has a grain of its own (characters develop and present new insights, concentrated thinking about the story opens new avenues). If you're sensible, you work with the grain and, if you come across a knot hole, you incorporate that into the design. This is not the same as 'making it up as you go along'; it's a very careful process of control.

Terry Pratchett
Character, Writing, Cutting

The words are easy - most of them have already been invented.

Terry Pratchett
Easy

There has been a lot of bad fantasy in the past - I'm by no means saying that all classic fantasy out there is bad - but there has been a lot of bad fantasy written by people who read a lot of fantasy and so all they keep doing is recycling it.

Terry Pratchett
Mean, Past, People
Source: bobneilson.org

This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.

Terry Pratchett
Pay, Discworld, Take Me
"Wintersmith". Book by Terry Pratchett, 2006.

I decided at school that the only sensible way to make a living by arranging words in a pleasing order was by working on newspapers, because you got paid at the end of the week or the end of the month.

Terry Pratchett
School, Order, Way
Source: www.theguardian.com

Some of my best sources are ex-policemen, just to get a feeling of what it's like to be one. And it's quite different from being a civilian - except, of course, that I believe that policemen are just special sorts of civilians. Things like how hard it is to hold someone that doesn't want to be held. This is the kind of thing that is worth knowing.

Terry Pratchett
Believe, Knowing, Feelings
Source: www.theguardian.com

They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.

Terry Pratchett
Country, Children, Stupid

It was long after midnight and the stars looked damp and chilly; the air was full of the busy silence of the night, which is created by hundreds of small furry things treading very carefully in the hope of finding dinner while avoiding being the main course.

Terry Pratchett
Stars, Night, Air

The best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's.

Terry Pratchett
Alzheimer's, Alzheimer, Best Things
"'The best thing I ever did was stand up and say I have Alzheimer's': Terry Pratchett speaks to Fiona Phillips". www.mirror.co.uk. November 14, 2012.

Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you’re going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he’ll grow up to be a demon just because his dad became one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me.

Terry Pratchett
Dad, Growing Up, Father

If women were as good as men they'd be a lot better!

Terry Pratchett
Men, Ifs
Terry Pratchett (2012). “The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld”, p.23, Harper Collins

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.

Terry Pratchett
Cutting, Space, Woven

One of the important things about being a small-town reporter is knowing what not to put in the paper.

Terry Pratchett
Knowing, Important, Towns
Source: www.theguardian.com

I think what drove me away from being a reporter was an inability to accept that the world came in neat stories. Every story you have to report is just part of something bigger. The news isn't what happened last night - it's some cumulative thing that's happened over centuries. I found it hard to think of one event and drag it out of a bubbling pot and present it as the story that explains it all.

Terry Pratchett
Night, Thinking, Events
Source: www.theguardian.com

It doesn't matter if dragons are flying overhead or whatever - a lot of Victoriana is still cut in the frame of fantasy.

Terry Pratchett
Cutting, Dragons, Flying
"Terry Pratchett on his latest novel, his medical diagnosis, and more". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. November 16, 2012.

There's some things that you wouldn't tackle in a children's book because it would be beyond, not the mental capabilities, but the experience of someone under the age of say ten or eleven to encompass. But that field is smaller than you might think. They can easily cope with death and things like that; they know about it and it's a subject that often preoccupies them.

Terry Pratchett
Children, Book, Thinking
Source: bobneilson.org

You May Also Like: