“Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“The worst thing you can do is nothing.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“If you want to change a whole people, then you start with the girls. It stands to reason: they learn faster, and they pass on what they learn to their children.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Cheery was aware that Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“but what should we do when the highborn and wealthy take to crime? Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“He'd heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“… you were so worried about legal and illegal that you never stopped to think about whether it was right or wrong.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“The jurisdiction of a good man extends to the end of the world.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Vimes's lack of interest in other people's children was limitless.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Well, the news has got around. The Duchess of Keepsake has invited us to a ball, Sir Henry and Lady Withering have invited us to a ball, and Lord and Lady Hangfinger have invited us to... yes, a ball."
"Well, that's a lot of..."
"Don't you dare, Sam.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“If there were such a thing as an inter-city thieving contest, Ankh-Morpork would bring home the trophy and probably everyone’s wallets.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“We live and learn, or, perhaps more importantly we learn and live.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Vimes died. The sun dropped out of the sky, giant lizards took over the world, and the stars exploded and went out and all hope vanished and gurgled into the sinktrap of oblivion. And gas filled the firmament and combusted and behold! There was a new heaven - or possibly not. And Disc and Io and and possibly verily life crawled out of the sea - or possibly didn't because it had been made by the gods, and lizards turned to less scaly lizards - or possibly did not. And lizards turned into birds and bugs turned into butterflies and a species of apple turned into banana and a kind of monkey fell out of a tree and realised life was better when you didn't have to spend your time hanging onto something. And in only a few billion years evolved trousers and ornamental stripey hats. Lastly the game of Crocket. And there, magically reincarnated, was Vimes, a little dizzy, standing on the village green looking into the smiling countenance of an enthusiast.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“So much paperwork to read! So much paperwork to push away! So much paperwork to pretend he hadn't received and that might have been eaten by gargoyles.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir, and I wouldn’t trust me one little inch, sir. I knows a bad one when I sees them. I have a mirror.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“They say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Do not seek perfection. None exists. All we can do is strive.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Vimes woke in damp and utter darkness with sand under his cheek. Some parts of his body reported for duty, others protested that they had a note from their mother.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“I'm not cruel, sir, I won't shoot you in the guts, but I will make you realize how much you took your toes for granted.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Aristocrats don't notice philosophical conundra. They just ignore them. Philosophy includes contemplating the possibility that you might be wrong, sir, and a real aristocrat knows that he is always right. It's not vanity, you understand, it's built-in absolute certainty. They may sometimes be as mad as a hatful of spoons, but they are always definitely and certainly mad.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“As the message drained away Vimes stared at the opposite wall, in which the door now opened, after a cursory knock, to reveal the steward bearing that which is guaranteed to frighten away all nightmares, to wit, a cup of hot tea.*
* The sound of the gentle rattle of china cup on china saucer drives away all demons, a little-known fact.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Not all questions are answered, commander, but fortunately some answers are questioned.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“This is Masher,' said Feeney. 'His father was a wild boar, his mother was surprised.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“That just goes to show that you never know, although what it is we never know I suspect we'll never know.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“Don't start weaving a social hypothesis in front of an angry woman holding a blade.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
“And now, because of a song, Vimes, a simple piece of music, Vimes, soft as a breath, stranger than a mountain, some very powerful states have agreed to work together to heal the problems of another autonomous state and, almost as collateral, turn some animals into people at a stroke.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Snuff
Terry Pratchett
Born place: in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, The United Kingdom
Born date April 28, 1948
See more on GoodReads
“The true signature and perhaps even the miracle of human love is helplessness, and all the more miraculous because it is a helplessness which we wittingly or unwittingly choose; in our love of a child, a partner, a work, or a road we have to take against the odds.”
― David Whyte, quote from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
“He’s no longer a stranger. He’s my moon.”
― Kyra Davis, quote from Just One Night
“Out of all the stories people tell about Savannah, the one that truly embodies the spirit of the place is this: Sometime around 1800 a fire broke out during a Christmas party at the home of Josiah Tattnall. By the time the servants discovered the fire, Josiah realized it was too late to save the house, so he took his guests outside to continue the party by the fire’s glow. To me, the moral is that even though life will take the things and the people you love from you, you should never, ever stop celebrating that you are alive. Josiah’s guests toasted life and each other and shattered their glasses against a large tree to show that they planned to move on and not hold on to a past that was gone.”
― J.D. Horn, quote from The Source
“Many individuals are so constituted that their only thought is to obtain pleasure and shun responsibility. They would like, butterfly-like, to wing forever in a summer garden, flitting from flower to flower, and sipping honey for their sole delight. They have no feeling that any result which might flow from their action should concern them. They have no conception of the necessity of a well-organized society wherein all shall accept a certain quota of responsibility and all realize a reasonable amount of happiness. They think only of themselves because they have not yet been taught to think of society. For them pain and necessity are the great taskmasters. Laws are but the fences which circumscribe the sphere of their operations. When, after error, pain falls as a lash, they do not comprehend that their suffering is due to misbehavior. Many such an individual is so lashed by necessity and law that he falls fainting to the ground, dies hungry in the gutter or rotting in the jail and it never once flashes across his mind that he has been lashed only in so far as he has persisted in attempting to trespass the boundaries which necessity sets. A prisoner of fate, held enchained for his own delight, he does not know that the walls are tall, that the sentinels of life are forever pacing, musket in hand. He cannot perceive that all joy is within and not without. He must be for scaling the bounds of society, for overpowering the sentinel. When we hear the cries of the individual strung up by the thumbs, when we hear the ominous shot which marks the end of another victim who has thought to break loose, we may be sure that in another instance life has been misunderstood--we may be sure that society has been struggled against until death alone would stop the individual from contention and evil.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from Sister Carry
“Buster was not used to this experience, physical desire that was actually fulfilled. In his entire life, he had kissed five women. One of them had been his sister. This was, Buster understood, a terrible percentage. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd had sex and still have enough fingers left over to make complicated shadow puppets.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from The Family Fang
Our Moon Has Blood C...
Bad Hair Day
Standing in the Rain...
Dark Companion
Deep Blue Eternity
Everything You and I...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.
