Terry Pratchett

Last night there seemed to be a chance. Anything was possible last night. That was the trouble with last nights. They were always followed by this mornings.

He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting 'All the Gods are bastards.'

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God's waiting room.

Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

It's useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they're just infested with lots of stuff.

I don't really plan. I'm almost intuitive about things.

I regarded finding I had a form of Alzheimer's as an insult and decided to do my best to marshal any kind of forces I could against this wretched disease. I have posterior cortical atrophy or PCA. They say, rather ingenuously, that if you have Alzheimer's it's the best form of Alzheimer's to have.

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake.

For an author, the nice characters aren't much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They're doing it for themselves.

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods they have not forgotten this.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

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.

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

Oh, a very useful philosophical animal, your average tortoise. Outrunning metaphorical arrows, beating hares in races... very handy.

You can't die with an unfinished book.

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.

I'm a fantasy writer, called a fantasy writer. But there's very little, apart from one or two basic concepts in 'I Shall Wear Midnight,' which are in fact fantasy. You have sticks that fly, but they're practical broomsticks, with a bloody great strap that you can hold on to so you don't fall off. And you try not to use them too often.

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.

It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren't doing.

Its useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

I've often felt depressed; everyone feels depressed.

Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It's when you go backwards through the 'begats' and the Garden of Eden, and you start thinking, 'Hang on, that's a big punishment for eating one lousy apple... There's a human-rights issue.'

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.

The truth is a fog in which one man sees the heavenly host and the other one sees a flying elephant

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. Its called living.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's.

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In 'The Colour of Magic' most of the city is set alight. It's a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams's 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.'

You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.

A horse's skull always looks scary, even if someone has put lipstick on it.

Siren voices tell me, 'You don't have to keep going on.' And then you think, 'I'm a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?' I don't know. I like being a writer.

The truth isnt easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find.

Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm a writer who's writing books, and therefore, I don't want to die. You'd miss the end of the book wouldn't you? You can't die with an unfinished book.

Most horses dont walk backwards voluntarily because what they cant see doesnt exist.

Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self.

I've lost both parents in the last two years, so you pick up on that stuff. That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill.

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.

'Discworld' is taking something that you know is ridiculous and treating it as if it is serious, to see if something interesting happens when you do so.

Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

People are often so busy living that they never stop to wonder why.

The thing is, 'Discworld' had been going on for a very long time, and I've written children's books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I'd do is I'd franchise it to myself.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn't theirs.

Let grammar, punctuation, and spelling into your life! Even the most energetic and wonderful mess has to be turned into sentences.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it's just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction.

Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.

When you're all singing together, it brings things together. I know the songs that my grandfather and my father sang.

I know three people who have got better after a brain tumour. I haven't heard of anyone who's got better from Alzheimer's.

In life as in breakfast cereal it is always best to read the instructions on the box.

The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.

If you had enough money you could hardly commit crimes at all. You just perpetrated amusing little peccadilloes.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.

Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about 'Wind in the Willows' and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought - you know about 'The Wind in the Willows.'

I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

Everywheres been where it is ever since it was first put there. Its called geography.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Legends don't have to make sense. They just have to be beautiful. Or at least interesting.

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.

The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well.

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.

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.

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 the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

Given enough coffee I could rule the world.

Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.

I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books - and I wouldn't put it past them - I'm in dead trouble.

Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I'm fortunate; I can be heard. Regrettably, it's amazing how people listen if you stand up in public and give away $1 million for research into the disease, as I have done.

The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.

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.

Are you a devious plotting unreliable madman Ah good then you can be my most trusted advisor.

Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.

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.

'Nation' was one that I'd have killed myself if I hadn't written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It's just a matter of joining the dots.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

When you read, I'm sure you don't realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don't do that.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

I think we are waiting for an e-book that even non-techies can be comfortable with. From my point of view, the biggest change is that I don't have to spend most of the day printing out and packaging a manuscript. I think I almost miss that.

The Librarian liked being best man. You were allowed to kiss bridesmaids, and they weren't allowed to run away.

Sooner or later we're all someone's dog.

It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases - one was Alzheimer's, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer's.

Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?

I think it does Discworld good if I don't write about it all the time: sometimes you have to get it out of your system.

Escapism isnt good or bad in itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to.

That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said - one of the famous lady novelists - 'unhappy is the family that contains an author'?

An author writes a book, and that's the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

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.

Rings try to find their way back to their owner. Someone ought to write a book about it.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

An Assassin, a real Assassin had to look like one-black clothes, hood, boots, and all. If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?