“Progress just means bad things happen faster.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling 'banana', but didn't know how you stopped.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is 'Don't do what you will, do what I say.' The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage. Besides you don't build a better world by choppin' heads off and giving decent girls away to frogs.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Humanity's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Where's the pleasure in bein' the winner if the loser ain't alive to know they've lost?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“It's daft, locking us up," said Nanny. "I'd have had us killed."
"That's because you're basically good," said Magrat. "The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“What was supposed to be so special about a full moon? It was only a big circle of light. And the dark of the moon was only darkness. But halfway between the two, when the moon was between the worlds of light and dark, when even the moon lived on the edge...maybe then a witch could believe in the moon.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Good and bad is tricky," she said. "I ain't too certain about where people stand. P'raps what matters is which way you face.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Granny Weatherwax was not a good loser. From her point of view, losing was something that happened to other people.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Find the story, Granny Weatherwax always said. She believed that the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you. But if you studied them, if you found out about them... you could use them, you could change them.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“The dwarf bread was brought out for inspection. But it was miraculous, the dwarf bread. No one ever went hungry when they had some dwarf bread to avoid. You only had to look at it for a moment, and instantly you could think of dozens of things you'd rather eat. Your boots, for example. Mountains. Raw sheep. Your own foot.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Cats are like witches. They don’t fight to kill, but to win. There is a difference. There’s no point in killing an opponent. That way, they won’t know they’ve lost, and to be a real winner you have to have an opponent who is beaten and knows it. There’s no triumph over a corpse, but a beaten opponent, who will remain beaten every day of the remainder of their sad and wretched life, is something to treasure.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“I don't want to hurt you, Mistress Weatherwax," said Mrs Gogol.
"That's good," said Granny. "I don't want you to hurt me either.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because—what with trolls and dwarfs and so on—speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“The trouble with witches is that they’ll never run away from things they really hate.
And the trouble with small furry animals in a corner is that, just occasionally, one of them’s a mongoose.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“People whose wishes get granted often don't turn out to be very nice people.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Magrat said she could never make the wand do that and Esme said no because, she wasted time wishing for thinges to happen instead of working out how to make them happen.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“In Genua, someone set out to make dreams come true. Remember some of your dreams?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“You can't trust folk songs. They always sneak up on you.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
“It pays to advertise,” Nanny agreed. “This is Greebo. Between you and me, he’s a fiend from hell.” “Well, he’s a cat,” said Mrs. Gogol, generously. “It’s only to be expected.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Witches Abroad
Terry Pratchett
Born place: in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, The United Kingdom
Born date April 28, 1948
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“Every schoolchild learns of L’Enfant’s design to make an invasion of Washington difficult. But more interesting is the placement of the White House relative to the Capitol. The distance between them is one mile, and at the time it was a mile through difficult terrain (the mall was a swamp). The distance was a barrier meant to tilt the intercourse between Congress and the president by making it marginally more difficult for them to connect—and thereby more difficult for the executive to control the legislature.”
― Lawrence Lessig, quote from Code: Version 2.0
“The house felt strange. Altered. Like someone had come in during the day and shrunk all the furniture just a tiny bit.”
― Anne Ursu, quote from Breadcrumbs
“Why do you rant and brag with such a spate of words, as if you wanted to overwhelm me with a sort of tempest and deluge of oratory-which nevertheless falls with the greater force on your own head, while my ark rides aloft in safety?”
― Martin Luther, quote from The Bondage of the Will
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
― Mark Twain, quote from The Innocents Abroad
“Olivier took a deep breath, then turned and bowed in farewell. Gersonides nodded in return, then thought of something.
"The manuscript you brought me, by that bishop. It argues that understanding is more important than movement. That action is virtuous only if it reflects pure comprehension, and that virtue comes from the comprehension, not the action."
Olivier frowned. "So?"
"Dear boy, I must tell you a secret."
"What?"
"I do believe it is wrong.”
― Iain Pears, quote from The Dream of Scipio
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The Remains of the D...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.
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