Terry Pratchett (b. April 28, 1948):
A European says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with me? An American says: I can't understand this, what's wrong with him?
All bastards are bastards, but some bastards is bastards.
Belief was never mentioned at home, but right actions were taught by daily example.
Changing was necessary. Change was right. He was all in favor of change. What he was dead against was things not staying the same.
Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies, worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of the planet's large animals, and suddenly tiny versions of one of the worst of them wanders into the cave and starts to purr.
Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page.
Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possibly go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent.
Either all days are holy or none are.
Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.
Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel?
Experience has taught me that you feel better on a flight if you avoid chicken fat in plastic sauce.
Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.
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.
Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care.
Hard to have faith, ain't it, when you read too many books.
History has to be observed. Otherwise it's not history. It's just... well, things happening one after another.
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
I keep vaguely wondering what Macs are like, but the ones I've seen spend too much time being friendly.
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 where the best fruit is.
I wish that the people who sing about the deeds of heroes would think about the people who have to clear up after them.
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
If it wasn't for the fun and money, I really don't know why I'd bother.
Imagination, not intelligence, made us human.
In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
In fact, no gods anywhere play chess. They prefer simple, vicious games, where you “Do Not Achieve Transcendence” but “Go Straight to Oblivion;” a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.
It's all wrong. An imposition on the landscape. I reckon that Stonehenge was build by the contemporary equivalent of Microsoft, whereas Avebury was definitely an Apple circle.
Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It's a feeling inside that can hardly be contained.
Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk.
Just because things are obvious doesn't mean they're true.
Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.
My programming language was solder.
One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
Personal isn't the same as important. People just think it is.
Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.
That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does a Falling Tree in the Forest Make a Sound if There's No One There to Hear It, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, “Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles.”
The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.
The New Testament is basically about what happened when God got religion.
The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.
There is a rumor going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.
There's more pressure on a vet to get it right. People say “it was god's will” when granny dies, but they get angry when they lose a cow.
This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.
When they're standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment.
Wikipedia, eh? Must be accurate, then!
You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.
Categories: Quotes of the day, Terry Pratchett
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