Quotes from Mort

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?"
Mort thought for a moment.
"No," he said eventually, "what?"
There was silence.
Then Albert straightened up and said, "Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“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.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe.
Which was going to be hard, because there wasn't one.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“There should be a word for that brief period just after waking when the mind is full of warm pink nothing. You lie there entirely empty of thought, except for a growing suspicion that heading towards you, like a sockful of damp sand in a nocturnal alleyway, are all the recollections you'd really rather do without, and which amount to the fact that the only mitigating factor in your horrible future is the certainty that it will be quite short. ”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU, Death continued. THEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL IN MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES. FASCINATING.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“History isn't like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always - eventually - manages to spring back into its old familar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a long time.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“I USHERED SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD. I WAS THE GRAVE OF ALL HOPE. I WAS THE ULTIMATE REALITY. I WAS THE ASSASSIN AGAINST WHOM NO LOCK WOULD HOLD.
"Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“When she spoke again it was in the thin, careful and above all brave voice of someone who has pulled themselves together despite overwhelming odds but might let go again at any moment.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Tʜᴇʀᴇ's ɴᴏ ᴊᴜsᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴍᴇ.

—Death”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“It's beautiful," said Mort softly. "What is it?"

THE SUN IS UNDER THE DISC, said Death.

"Is it like this every night?"

EVERY NIGHT, said Death. NATURE'S LIKE THAT.

"Doesn't anyone know?"

ME. YOU. THE GODS. GOOD, ISN'T IT?

"Gosh!"

Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at the kingdoms of the world.

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Oh. I see. People don't want to see what can't possibly exist.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Tragic heroes always moan when the gods take an interest in them, but it's the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Mort was already aware that love made you feel hot and cold and cruel and weak, but he hadn't realized that it could make you stupid.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“YOU MUST LEARN THE COMPASSION PROPER TO YOUR TRADE"
"And what's that?"
"A SHARP EDGE.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“THERE'S NO JUSTICE, said Mort. JUST US.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“He felt as if he had been shipwrecked on the Titanic, but in the nick of time had been rescued. By the Lusitania.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Although the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“Well,----me,” he said. “A----ing wizard. I hate----ing wizards!” “You shouldn’t----them, then,” muttered one of his henchmen, effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

“If there's one thing that really annoys a god, it's not knowing something.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Mort

About the author

Popular quotes

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Alkimist

“The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not through argument but through feeling, and then to close the gap between you and everything that is not you, and in this way pass from feeling to meaning. It's not something that committees can do. It's not a task achieved by groups or by movements. It's done by individuals, each person mediating in some way between a sense of history and an experience of the world.”
― Robert Hughes, quote from The Shock of the New

“It is often said that what sets Shakespeare apart is his ability to illuminate the workings of the soul and so on, and he does that superbly, goodness knows, but what really characterizes his work - every bit of it, in poems and plays and even dedications, throughout every portion of his career - is a positive and palpable appreciation of the transfixing power of language. A Midsummer Night's Dream remains an enchanting work after four hundred years, but few could argue that it cuts to the very heart of human behaviour. What it does is take, and give, a positive satisfaction in the joyous possibilities of verbal expression.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from Shakespeare: The World as Stage

“No sabemos mucho del amor. Con el amor es como con la pera. La pera es dulce y tiene forma. Intentad definir la forma de la pera.”

Jaskier en "Tiempo de Odio".”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from Time of Contempt

“Trouble is, you can't run away from yourself." Coach snatched the towel from his shoulder, folded into a perfect square, and set it in the space between us. "Unfortunately," he said, "ain't nobody that fast.”
― Jason Reynolds, quote from Ghost

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.