3,122 Quotes by Terry Pratchett

Down there - he said - are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.

You had to deal every day with people who were foolish and lazy and untruthful and downright unpleasant, and you could certainly end up thinking that the world would be considerably improved if you gave them a slap.

Humans are always slightly lost. It's a basic characteristic.

I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people.

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.

He shrugged. - They're just people - he said. - They're just doing what people do. Sir.Lord Vetinari gave him a friendly smile.- Of course, of course - he said. - You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you'd go quite mad. Otherwise you'd think you're standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.

I was supposed to be making some soup," said Rincewind. He waved the onions vaguely. It was probably not the most heroic or purposeful gesture ever made.

People like that don't need a reason apart from "because I can". They have a nightmare and try to make it happen.

He was trying to conjure up a succubus." It should be impossible to leer when all you've got is a beak, but the parrot managed it. "That's a female demon what comes in the night and makes mad passionate wossn-""I've heard of them," said Rincewind. "Bloody dangerous things."The parrot put its head on one side. "It never worked. All he ever got was a neuralger.""What's that?""It's a demon that comes and has a headache at you.