Discworld/Quotes

Terry Pratchett is very quotable. This page is under construction and mostly stolen from the Pratchett Quote File.

City Watch

Guards! Guards!

"[...] a number of offences of murder by means of a blunt instrument, to whit, a dragon, and many further offences of generalized abetting [...]"

"Have another drink, not-Corporal Nobby?" said Sergeant Colon unsteadily.
"I do not mind if I do, not-Sgt Colon," said Nobby.

—The joys of working undercover

Fabricati diem, Pvnc.

—The motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

There was a thoughtful pause in the conversation as the assembled Brethren mentally divided the universe into the deserving and the undeserving, and put themselves on the appropriate side.

All dwarfs have beards and wear up to twelve layers of clothing. Gender is more or less optional.

All dwarfs are by nature dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and thoughtful people whose only minor failing is a tendency, after one drink, to rush at enemies screaming "Arrrrrrgh!" and axing their legs off at the knee.

People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else."

It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military manoeuvres, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of.

Vetinari:You think there are the good people and the bad people. You are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.

Lady Ramkin's bosom rose and fell like an empire.

Vimes: It's a metaphor of human bloody existence, a dragon. And if that wasn't bad enough, it's also a bloody great hot flying thing.

The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.

A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it.

Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.

"Right, you bastards, you're... you're geography!"

The reason that cliches become cliches is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.

You have the effrontery to be squeamish. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape -- we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Thud! and Snuff

Lancre Witches

Equal Rites

If broomsticks were cars, this one would be a split-window Morris Minor.

"While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe."

Treatle nodded. "I hadn't looked at it like that," he said, "But you're absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance."

—Discworld scientists at work

They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.

—Discworld scientists at work

They may have been ugly. They may have been evil. But when it came to poetry in motion, the Things had all the grace and coordination of a deck-chair.

"They say there's dwarf mines under the Ramtops," she said inconsequentially. "My, but them little buggers is in for a surprise."

—Granny reflects on Esk's methods of lighting a fire.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.

Wyrd Sisters

As the cauldron bubbled, an eldritch voice shrieked, "When shall we three meet again?"
Another voice said, in far more ordinary tones, "Well, I can do next Tuesday."

The calender of the Theocracy of Muntab counts down, not up. No-one knows why, but it might not be a good idea to hang around and find out.

The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.

"'Tis not right, a woman going into such places by herself." Granny nodded. She thoroughly approved of such sentiments so long as there was, of course, no suggestion that they applied to her.

Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, and Carpe Jugulum

Wizards

The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, and Sourcery

Eric

No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpork. Well technically they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.

Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when you shout, "Where's my clean socks?", no-one answers.

It was true about the time measurement as well. The Tezumen had realized long ago that everything was steadily getting worse and, having a terrible little-mindedness, had developed a complex system to keep track of how much worse each succeeding day was.

"There's a door."
"Where does it go?"
"It stays where it is, I think."

The trouble is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so.

"So we're surrounded by absolutely nothing. There's a word for it. It's what you get when there's nothing left and everything's been used up."
"Yes. I think it's called the bill."

"What're quantum mechanics?"
"I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose."

The librarian was, ex officio, a member of the college council. No-one had been able to find any rule about orang-utans being barred, although they had surreptitiously looked very hard for one.

I hope we are not going to have any of this "Foul Fiend" business again.

—Death gets summoned by the college council

There had been some desultory talk about putting up a statue to Rincewind but, by the curious alchemy that tends to apply in these sensitive issues, this quickly became a plaque, then a note on the Roll of Honour, and finally a motion of censure for being improperly dressed.

—Unseen University politics at work

Any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough to realise that if there was any power in demonology, then it lay with the demons. Using it for your own purposes would be like trying to beat mice to death with a rattlesnake.

—Why summoning demons is a Bad Idea

The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.

The sergeant put on the poker face which has been handed down from NCO to NCO ever since one protoamphibian told another, lower ranking protoamphibian to muster a squad of newts and Take That Beach.

Eric: "What shall I do?"
Rincewind: "Well, if you see anything crawl out of the sea and try to breathe, you could try telling it not to bother."

—At the Beginning of Time

"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

The Supreme Life President of Hell wrote: "What business are we in???" He thought for a bit, and then carefully wrote, underneath: "We are in the damnation business!!!"

Interesting Times and The Last Continent

Death And Company

Tiffany Aching and The Wee Free Men

Moist von Lipwig

Other

Pyramids

What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?"

All assassins had a full-length mirror in their rooms, because it would be a terrible insult to anyone to kill them when you were badly dressed.

The Ephebians made wine out of anything they could put in a bucket, and ate anything that couldn't climb out of one.

Nature abhors dimensional abnormalities, and seals them neatly away so that they don't upset people. Nature, in fact, abhors a lot of things, including vacuums, ships called the "Marie Celeste", and the chuck keys for electric drills.

There was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite, for example, would count as gentrification.

Moving Pictures

The Librarian had seen many weird things in his time, but that had to be the 57th strangest.^[1]

"Woof bloody woof."

—Gaspode the Wonder Dog

It was the sort of thing you expected in the Street of Alchemists. The neighbours * preferred* explosions, which were at least identifiable and soon over. They were better than the smells, which crept up on you.

The Archchancellor's most important job, as the Bursar saw it, was to sign things, preferably, from the Bursar's point of view, without reading them first.

By and large, the only skill the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork had discovered so far was the ability to turn gold into less gold.

"If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter."

—On popcorn

Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.

And then you bit onto them, and learned once again that Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler could find a use for bits of an animal that the animal didn't know it had got. Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried onions and mustard people would eat anything.

"The thing is that Mr. Dibbler can even sell sausages to people who have bought them off him before."

"Why's it called Ming?" said the Archchancellor, on cue.
The Bursar tapped the pot. It went ming.

Azhural raised his staff. "It's fifteen hundred miles to Ankh-Morpork," he said. "We've got three hundred and sixty-three elephants, fifty carts of forage, the monsoon's about to break and we're wearing... we're wearing... sort of things, like glass, only dark... dark glass things on our eyes..."

People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to a sticky end. All over the entire room, sometimes.

"It looks worse than you can imagine!"
"I can imagine some pretty bad things!"
"That's why I said worse!"

"Woof. In tones of low menace."

"There's nothin' wrong with bein' a son of a bitch."

"I can explain it in Dog, but you only listen in Human."

"Well, 'scuse me. I was jus' tryin' to save the world."

"If gharstely creatures from before the Dawna Time starts wavin' at you from under your bed, jus' you don't come complainin' to me."

"Messin' around with girls in thrall to Creatures from the Void never works out, take my word for it."

"Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little."

"Did I hear things, or can that little dog speak?" said Dibbler.
"He says he can't," said Victor. Dibbler hesitated.
"Well," he said, "I suppose he should know."

In retrospect, Victor was always a little unclear about those next few minutes. That's the way it goes. The moments that change your life are the ones that happen suddenly, like the one where you die.

Small Gods, The Truth, The Last Hero, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Monstrous Regiment, and Unseen Academicals

Games

"As far as leaders go, the only reason I'd follow him into battle, is out of curiosity."

"A swamp dragon if i'm not mistaken. I though these things were filled with explosive gas, (the carcass explodes) oh right!

Rincewind Excuse me sir. Could you get me a tome called 'featherwinkle's concise compedium of dragons' lairs'?
Librarian ook ook eek ook.
(both engage in a conversation of ape talk)
Rincewind Well nevermind I'll come back later.
Librarian ook eek ook?
Rincewind Yes i've gibbon up. no monkey, ape ... oh damn! (the librarian hits him over the head)

"Ugh It's horrible... hang on it's me! rather chap ain't he?

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↑ He had a tidy mind.

[1] He had a tidy mind.

[1]