Quotes from Unseen Academicals

“The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."
Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Juliet's version of cleanliness was next to godliness, which was to say it was erratic, past all understanding and was seldom seen.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Don't be smart. Smart is only a polished version of dumb. Try intelligence. It will surely see you through.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Peace?' said Vetinari. 'Ah, yes, defined as period of time to allow for preparation for the next war.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“If you try to to take my bananas from me, I will reclaim them from your cold dead hands.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built in to the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Contrary to popular belief and hope, people don't usually come running when they hear a scream. That's not how humans work. Humans look at other humans and say, 'Did you hear a scream?' because the first scream might have been you screaming inside your head, or a horse backfiring.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“I would like you to teach [the orcs] civilised behaviour," said Ladyship coldly.

He appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“I see evil when I look in my shaving mirror. It is, philosophically, present everywhere in the universe in order, apparently, to highlight the existence of good. I think there is more to this theory, but I tend to burst out laughing at this point.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“I would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir' Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?' 'Permission to go and find my mother?' ”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“A lot hinges on the fact that, in most circumstances, people are not allowed to hit you with a mallet. They put up all kinds of visible and invisible signs that say, 'Do not do this' in the hope that it'll work, but if it doesn't, then they shrug, because there is, really, no real mallet at all.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, "The mountain is, and is not." They would think, "The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair - the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief.
Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth.
More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“You were safe on a troll. Anyone wanting to mug a troll would have to use a building on a stick.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“...one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Many bad things were done under the Evil Empire" she said. "The best we can do now is undo them. Will you assist in this endeavor?"
"In every way that I can" said Nutt.
"I would like you to teach them civilized behavior," said Ladyship coldly.
He appeared to consider this. "Yes, of course, I think, that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?"
There was a brief outburst of laughter from Vetinari, who immediately cupped his hand over his mouth. "Oh I do beg your pardon," he said.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“But I did not return until half past four this morning and I distinctly remember stubbing my toe on the stairs. I am as drunk as a skunk, Drumknott, which of course means skunks are just as drunk as I. I must say the term is unfamiliar to me, and I had not thought hitherto of skunks in this context, but Mustrum Ridcully was kind enough to enlighten me.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“I would not like it thought that I do not buy my own paperclips, sir. I enjoy owning my own paperclips. It means they are mine.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“Well, yes, but it's not about the football."
"You're saying that football is not about football?"
"It's the sharing," she said. "It's being part of the crowd. It's chanting together. It's all of it. the whole thing.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can't take it any more.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“It is considered in the Sto Plains that only scoundrels know the second verse of their national anthem, since anyone spending time memorizing that would be up to no good purpose.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“The last thing she wanted was to see her friend getting ideas in her head. There was such a lot of room in there for them to bounce around and do damage.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“the Ankh-Morpork Trespassers' Society was originally the Explorers' Society until Lord Vetinari forcibly insisted that most of the places 'discovered' by the society's members already had people in them, who were already trying to sell snakes to the newcomers.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“She was, in fact, quite a pleasant looking girl, even if her bosom had clearly been intended for a girl two feet taller; but she was not Her. The Egregious Professor of Grammar and Usage would have corrected this to "she was not she," which would have caused the Professor of Logic to spit out his drink.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

“We play and are played and the best we can hope for is to do it with style.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Unseen Academicals

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“VI. FINAL WARNING There are monsters in these pages, but as Ogden Nash pointed out in my first short-story collection, Smoke and Mirrors, where there’s a monster, there’s also a miracle. There are some long stories and some short ones. There are a handful of poems, which perhaps might need their own warning for the people who are frightened, disturbed, or terminally puzzled by poetry. (In my second short-story collection, Fragile Things, I tried to explain that the poems come free. They are bonuses for the kind of people who do not need to worry about sneaky and occasional poems lurking inside their short-story collections.) There. Consider yourself warned. There are so many little triggers out there, being squeezed in the darkness even as I write this. This book is correctly labeled. Now all we have to worry about is all the other books, and, of course, life, which is huge and complicated and will not warn you before it hurts you. Thank you for coming. Enjoy the things that never happened. Secure your own mask again after you read these stories, but do not forget to help others.”
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