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The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.

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
Firsts
First
Writing
Draft
Telling
Story
Stories

More quotes by Terry Pratchett

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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.
Terry Pratchett
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One person is nothing. Two people are a nation.
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The words are easy - most of them have already been invented.
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He looked up at them, a scruffy Napoleon with his laces trailing, exiled to a rose-trellised Elba.
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The book is not completely written until someone else has read it.
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You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I'm not writing 'The A-Team' - if there's a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.
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This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.
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I don't really plan. I'm almost intuitive about things.
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She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.
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Needless to say, they refused to submit to the Empire, conducting such a persistent guerrilla war that the Romans gave up hope of conquering Scotland, and the Wee Free Men remained both wee and free.
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I didn't go to university. Didn't even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.
Terry Pratchett
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It as true that normal people couldn't hear Gaspode speak, because dogs don't speak. It's a well know fact. ... Besides, almost all dogs don't talk. Ones that do are merely a statistical error, and can therefore be ignored.
Terry Pratchett
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The universe clearly operates for the benefit of humanity. This can be readily seen from the convenient way the sun comes up in the morning, when people are ready to start the day.
Terry Pratchett
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Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they've missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
Terry Pratchett
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Right! Right! You can get there! I can get there! You're a natural at counting to two! I'm a nat'ral at counting to two! If you can count to two, you can count to anything! If I can count to two, I can count to anything! And then the world is your mollusc! My mollusc! What's a mollusc?
Terry Pratchett
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Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.
Terry Pratchett
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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
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Things like crowns had a troublesome effect on clever folk it was best to leave all the reigning to the kind of people whose eyebrows met in the middle when they tried to think. In a funny sort of way, they were much better at it.
Terry Pratchett
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It's tough at the top. It's tough at the bottom. But in between you could use them for horse-shoes.
Terry Pratchett
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Modesty is only arrogance by stealth.
Terry Pratchett