"Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down."
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Quote collection
Terry Pratchett quotes (page 17 of 72)
1.4K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led."
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"The jurisdiction of a good man extends to the end of the world."
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"Rincewind gave his fingers a long shocked stare, as one might regard a gun that has been hanging on the wall for decades and has suddenly gone off and perforated the cat."
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"All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums."
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"Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on."
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"If you get the characters right you've done sometimes nearly half the work. I sometimes find I get the characters right then the characters will often help me write the book - not what they look like that's not very important - what people look like is not about their character. You have to describe the shape they leave in the world, how they react to things, what effect they have on people and you do that by telling their story."
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"There's that lovely thing for the first month or two of writing a new book: OK, I don't know what that character's going to do, but we'll find out later. After about three or four months you come to that bit where you've got to put some plot in before it's too late, and you have to go back and start inserting plot, and, ooh, I've left out the literature, OK, lets put some in."
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"Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean."
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"Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer."
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"People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter."
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"Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It's unreliable levers that are the problem."
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"No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable"
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"The best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's."
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"Words are the litmus paper of the minds. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word "commence" in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say "Enter", don't stop to pack."
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"The most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendents not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships, or being patronised by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it."
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"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."
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"Although the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome."
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"It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases - one was Alzheimers, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimers."
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"And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye."
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