3,122 Quotes by Terry Pratchett

  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    Om rubed his head. This wasn't god-like thinking. It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn't a game down there. People died. Bits got chopped off. We're like eagles up here, he thought. Sometimes we show tortoise how to fly. Then we let go.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and Acme Dynamite Company written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    God needed people. Belief was the food of the gods. But they needed a shape. Gods become what people believed they ought to be. So the Goddess of Wisdom carried a penguin. It could have happened to any god. It should have been an owl. Everyone knew that. But one bad sculptor who had only ever had an owl described to him makes a mess of a statue, belief steps in, next thing you know the Goddess of Wisdom is lumbered with a bird that wears evening dress the whole time and smells of fish.

  • Tags
  • Share


  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    As the message drained away Vimes stared at the opposite wall, in which the door now opened, after a cursory knock, to reveal the steward bearing that which is guaranteed to frighten away all nightmares, to wit, a cup of hot tea.** The sound of the gentle rattle of china cup on china saucer drives away all demons, a little-known fact.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    Wizards don’t believe in gods. They didn’t deny their existence, of course. They just didn’t believe. It was nothing personal; they weren’t actually rude about it. Gods were a visible part of narrativium that made things work, that gave the world its purpose. It was just that they were best avoided close up.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    The gods," he said. "Imprisoned in a thought. And perhaps they were never more than a dream.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.

  • Tags
  • Share

  • Author Terry Pratchett
  • Quote

    The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?

  • Tags
  • Share