Quotes from Lords and Ladies

“If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the
cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat
could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo, my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct answer is: Hey, whatever I select.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a
red flag to a bu... was like putting something very annoying in front of
someone who was annoyed by it.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Bursar?"
"Yes, Archchancellor?"
"You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you?"
"Me? No, Archchancellor."
"Then it'd be a damn good idea to take your underpants off your head.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Personal’s not the same as important. People just think it is.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“I thought unicorns were more . . . Fluffy.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“If you really want to upset a witch, do her a favor which she has no means of repaying. The unfulfilled obligation will nag at her like a hangnail.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“No matter what she did with her hair it took about three minutes for it to tangle itself up again, like a garden hosepipe in a shed [Which, no matter how carefully coiled, will always uncoil overnight and tie the lawnmower to the bicycles].”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“… people didn't seem to be able to remember what it was like with the elves around. Life was certainly more interesting then, but usually because it was shorter. And it was more colorful, if you liked the color of blood.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“They'd smash up the world if they thought it would make a pretty noise.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“I never said nothing..."
"I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Even the blind and meek and voiceless have gods.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“It wasn't that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“What is magic?
There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Someone got killed up here.... It was outside. A tall man. He had one leg longer’n the other. And a beard. He was probably a hunter."
"How’d you know all that?"
"I just trod on ‘im.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“This is a lovely party," said the Bursar to a chair, "I wish I was here.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Stand before your god, bow before your king, kneel before your man.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“There was something about the eyes. It wasn’t the shape or the color. The was no evil glint. But there was…

… a look. It was such a look that a microbe might encounter if it could see up from the bottom end of the microscope. It said: You are nothing. It said: You are flawed, you have no value. It said: You are animal. It said: Perhaps you may be a pet, or perhaps you may be a quarry. It said: And the choice is not yours.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘If only I’d…’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“Don't try the paranormal until you know what's normal.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“What is magic?

Then there is the witches' explanation, which comes in two forms, depending on the age of the witch. Older witches hardly put words to it at all, but may suspect in their hearts that the universe really doesn't know what the hell is going on and consists of a zillion trillion billion possibilities, and could become any one of them if a trained mind rigid with quantum certainty was inserted into the crack and twisted; that, if you really had to make someone's hat explode, all you needed to do was twist into that universe where a large number of hat molecules all decide at the same time to bounce off in different directions.

Younger witches, on the other hand, talk about it all the time and believe it involves crystals, mystic forces, and dancing about without yer drawers on.

Everyone may be right, all at the same time. That's the thing about quantum.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

“The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Lords and Ladies

About the author

Popular quotes

“In the fluid world of 1919, it was possible to dream of great change, or have nightmares about the collapse of order.”
― Margaret MacMillan, quote from Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

“This was exhausting. If she was going to make this kind of emotional investment in someone, he should at least be a proper boyfriend. But for a casual fling? She could drive herself crazy.”
― Lauren Weisberger, quote from Chasing Harry Winston

“Everything that can be said with words can be contradicted with words, so what’s the point of dissertations, novels, literature? Or put another way: whatever we say is true we can also always say is untrue. It is a zero point and the place from which the zero value begins to spread. However, it is not a dead point, not for literature either, for literature is not just words, literature is what words evoke in the reader. It is this transcendence that validates literature, not the formal transcendence in itself, as many believe.”
― Karl Ove Knausgård, quote from Min kamp 2

“Some things, the best things, do last forever”
― Kiersten White, quote from The Chaos of Stars

“When you really love someone, you see all their mess and their brokenness and you love them anyway. In fact, seeing all of that sort of makes you love them more. - Heather Hepler”
― Caisey Quinn, quote from Keep Me Still

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.