Quotes from Going Postal

“Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“I commend my soul to any god that can find it.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered to be able to answer, such as "Is this the laundry?" "How do you spell surreptitious?" and, on a regular basis, "Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Speak softly and employ a huge man with a crowbar.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you're going to behave, I shan't bring you again.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“There is always a choice."
"You mean I could choose certain death?"
"A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Mr Horsefry was a youngish man, not simply running to fat but vaulting, leaping and diving towards obesity. He had acquired at thirty an impressive selection of chins, and now they wobbled with angry pride.*

* It is wrong to judge by appearances. Despite his expression, which was that of a piglet having a bright idea, and his mode of speech, which might put you in mind of a small, breathless, neurotic but ridiculously expensive dog, Mr Horsefry might well have been a kind, generous and pious man. In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in the wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wandered in out of the rain. Snap judgements can be so unfair.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“You know how to pray, don’t you? Just put your hands together and hope.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“If he'd been a hero, he would have taken the opportunity to say, "That's what I call sorted!" Since he wasn't a hero, he threw up.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“See a pin and pick it up, and, all day long, you'll have a pin.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“If you kept changing the way people saw the world, you ended up changing the way you saw yourself.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“In defiance of Miss Maccalariat I'd like to commit hanky-panky with you, Miss Adora Belle Dearheart... well, certainly hanky, and possibly panky when we get to know one another better.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Soon to come in licorice, orange, cinnamon, and banana, but not strawberry, because I hate strawberries.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever - provided, naturally, that you don't go and look. This is known as finance.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“You did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“It was also a room full of books and made of books. There was no actual furniture; this is to say, the desk and chairs were shaped out of books. It looked as though many of them were frequently referred to, because they lay open with other books used as bookmarks.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Welcome to fear, said Moist to himself. It's hope, turned inside out. You know it can't go wrong, you're sure it can't go wrong...But it might.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“Moist was sure doctors keep skeletons around to cow patients. Nyer, nyer, we know what you look underneath ...”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“I wonder if it's like this for mountain climbers, he thought. You climb bigger and bigger mountains and you know that one day one of them is going to be just that bit too steep. But you go on doing it, because it’s so-o good when you breathe the air up there. And you know you'll die falling.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

“The people who guard the rainbow don't like those who get in the way of the sun.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Going Postal

About the author

Popular quotes

“They looked at each other until they weren't acquaintances any longer.”
― Budd Schulberg, quote from What Makes Sammy Run?

“He turned and looked at Henry. “Did you always know that you would write all these books?” “I know the next sentence,” Henry said, “and often the next story and I take notes for novels.”
― Colm Tóibín, quote from The Master

“She pushed the gardener away and called for them. In her sleep she had seen love. It was poisoning. It was possessing. Devouring. Or it was seven pairs of boots climbing up the stairs to find her.”
― Francesca Lia Block, quote from The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

“I take a moment to admire the way Adrian’s t-shirt sticks to his back. He wasn’t a slouch in the muscle department to begin with, but now with the farm work we have to do by hand—it’s one of the silver linings in a very dark, zombie-shaped cloud.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from And After

“He believed dark feys didn’t get a mate, but she mentally waved that away because men often believed stupid shit.”
― Kresley Cole, quote from Sweet Ruin

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.