“And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“There is a curse.
They say:
May you live in interesting times.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn’t a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Probably the last sound heard before the Universe folded up like a paper hat would be someone saying, “What happens if I do this?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Many things went on at Unseen University and, regrettably, teaching had to be one of them. The faculty had long ago confronted this fact and had perfected various devices for avoiding it. But this was perfectly all right because, to be fair, so had the students.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“It was impossible for him to get bored. He just didn't have the imagination.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“I heard the Empire has a tyrannical and repressive government!"
"What form of government is that?" said Ponder Stibbons.
"A tautology," said the Dean, from above.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“The Empire's got something worse than whips all right. It's got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“You could say to the universe this is not fair. And the universe would say: Oh, isn’t it? Sorry.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all along. Fate wins.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“In life, as in breakfast cereal, it is always best to read the instructions on the box.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“He wanted to say: how could you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you could do with the peasents was to leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting for those who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“They stole from rich merchants and temples and kings. They didn't steal from poor people; this was not because there was anything virtuous about poor people, it was simply because poor people had no money.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Oh, no," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back. "Not that. That's meddling with things you don't understand."
"Well, we are wizards," said Ridcully. "We're supposed to meddle in things we don't understand. If we hung around waitin' till we understood things we'd never get anything done.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“And when in doubt, take all your clothes off,' said Caleb. 'What for?' 'Sign of a good berserk, taking all your clothes off. Frightens the hell out of the enemy. If anyone starts laughing, stab 'em one.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Ricewind had always relied on running away. But somerimes, perhaps, you had to stand and fight, if only because there was nowhere left to run.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“A foot on the neck is nine points of the law.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“with the expression of one who knows that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Do teachers go anywhere special when they die?’ said Cohen. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Mr Saveloy gloomily. He wondered for a moment whether there really was a great Free Period in the sky. It didn’t sound very likely. Probably there would be some marking to do.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Look, I don’t mind summoning some demon and asking it,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “That’s normal. But building some mechanical contrivance to do your thinking for you, that’s … against Nature.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“They were probably descended from people who learned that if you look too hard at anyone on horseback you receive a sharp stinging sensation such as might be obtained by a stick around the ear. Not looking up at people on horseback had become hereditary. People who stared at people on horseback in what was considered to be a funny way never survived long enough to breed.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“with one mighty bound, you could be free. Provided you realized it was one of your options.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril, and Lack of Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet, and Contra-flow.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Cohen looked at the forest of lances and pennants. Hundreds of thousands of men looked like quite a lot of men when you saw them close to.
"I suppose," he said, slowly, "that none of you has got some amazing plan you've been keeping quiet about?"
"We thought you had one," said Truckle.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“No one likes a poor thief.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“I am not frightened,' said Lord Tang. 'I am ashamed.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it was something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep, and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“I feel like a million dollars don't you? ... Good, Lets go get some.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
“Three Pink Pig and Five White Fang were, loosely speaking, privates, and not just because they were pale, vulnerable, and inclined to curl up and hide when danger threatened.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Interesting Times
Terry Pratchett
Born place: in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, The United Kingdom
Born date April 28, 1948
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“For those of us with a bookish bent, reading is a reflexive response to everything. This is how we deal with the world and anything that comes our way. We have always known that there is a book for every occasion and every obsession. When in doubt, we are always looking things up.”
― Diane Schoemperlen, quote from Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship
“Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in time with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to the right or to the left. He would do as the others did.”
― John Dos Passos, quote from Three Soldiers
“All the books helped him in some way or another. Quenton Cassidy was not enthusiastically going about the heady business of breaking world records or capturing some coveted prize; such ideas would have been laughable to him in the bland grind of his daily lifestyle. He was merely trying to slip into a lifestyle that he could live with, strenuous but not unendurable by any means, out of which if the corpuscles and the capillaries and the electrolytes were properly aligned in their own mysterious configurations, he might do even better what he had already done quite well. He was trying to switch gears; at least that is how he thought of it. And though it was a somewhat frightful thing to contemplate for very long, he was really pulling out all the stops. After this he would have no excuses, ever again.”
― quote from Once a Runner
“Come on Geena. Dude's slippery as hell. He could talk his way out of a blow job in the Oval Office.”
― Jody Gehrman, quote from Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty
“The sciences have two extremities which meet. The first is the ignorance in which men find themselves at birth. The second is that attained by great souls. They have surveyed whatever man can know, find that they know all, meet in that same ignorance whence they started. It is a clever ignorance, which knows itself. Those among them who, having emerged from the first ignorance, have been unable to achieve the other & have some smattering of this self-satisfied knowledge, pose as experts. The latter do not disturb people, are no more mistaken in their judgments on everything than others. The masses, the skilled, make up the retinue of a nation. The others, who respect it, are equally respected by it.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, quote from Maldoror and the Complete Works
Vagabond
White Wolf
In Dubious Battle
Kill the Dead
Off Season
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