Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE was an English humorist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. Profoundly inspirational Terry Pratchett quotes will challenge the way you think, and make your life worth living.
If you’re searching for great quotes by comedians that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes by Amy Poehler, best Bill Burr quotes and greatest Bill Cosby quotes.
Famous Terry Pratchett Quotes
It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.
I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
It’s useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.
Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
I didn’t go to university. Didn’t even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.
No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analyzing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.
Inspirational Terry Pratchett Quotes
Anger is wonderful. It keeps you going. I’m angry about bankers. About the government.
What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.
Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It’s the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.
He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armor shouting ‘All the Gods are bastards.’
Freedom without limits is just a word.
Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes, Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn’t take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.
Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.
In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.
The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.
Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.
It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it.
Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
You can’t build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I’m not writing ‘The A-Team’ – if there’s a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.
I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.
Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care.
Top Terry Pratchett Quotes
Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog.
It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.
I grow as many of our vegetables as I can because my granddad was a professional gardener, and it’s in the blood.
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.
I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.
Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.
Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.
Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.
The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first and is waiting for it.
’Educational’ refers to the process, not the object. Although come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger.
If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That’s what people remember.
Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.
The baby boomers are getting older and will stay older for longer. And they will run right into the dementia firing range. How will a society cope? Especially a society that can’t so readily rely on those stable family relationships that traditionally provided the backbone of care?
The harder I work, the luckier I become.
In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point, you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty-five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.
