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They suffered from the terrible delusion that something could be done. They seemed prepared to make the world the way they wanted it or die in the attempt, and the trouble with dying in the attempt was that you died in the attempt.

Terry Pratchett

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Terry Pratchett
Age: 66 †
Born: 1948
Born: April 28
Died: 2015
Died: March 12
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire
Terence David John Terry Pratchett
Terence David John Pratchett
Sir Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett
Done
Seemed
Something
Prepared
Way
Died
Make
Dying
World
Terrible
Trouble
Suffered
Dies
Delusion
Wanted
Attempt

More quotes by Terry Pratchett

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Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.
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The phrase may you live in interesting times is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue may you come to the attention of those in authority and finish with may the gods give you everything you ask for. I have no idea about its authenticity.
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Death: Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom.
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Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.
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The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.
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Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted advisor.
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And we don't often get any wading birds in the River Ankh, mainly because the pollution would eat their legs away and anyway, it's easier for them to walk on the surface.
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You have so many sources to draw on when you're a fantasy writer.
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Privilege (to the privileged) means having private laws.
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Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.
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First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.
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Any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough to realize that if there was any power in demonology, then it lay with the demons. Using it for your own purposes would be like trying to beat mice to death with a rattlesnake.
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Anyway, if you stop tellin' people it's all sorted out afer they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.
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The kind of accidents you prefer to call...accidents.
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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.
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One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble.
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They may have been ugly. They may have been evil. But when it came to poetry in motion, the Things had all the grace and coordination of a deck-chair.
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And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
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My character - and for that matter my worst habits - could only be described by someone else. You can't open a box with the crowbar inside it.
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You see the lighted windows and what you want to think is that there may be many interesting stories behind them, but what you know is that really there are just dull, dull souls, mere consumers of food, who think their instincts are emotions and their tiny lives of more account than a whisper of wind.
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