Quote

You couldn't say 'I had orders.' You couldn't say 'It's not fair.' No one was listening. There were no Words. You owned yourself. [...] Not 'Thou Shalt Not'. Say 'I Will Not'.

Terry Pratchett

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Thou
Couldn
Listening
Shalt
Words
Orders
Order
Owned
Atheist
Fairs
Fair

More quotes by Terry Pratchett

Image
My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It's just a matter of joining the dots.
Terry Pratchett
Image
The best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I've got Alzheimer's.
Terry Pratchett
Image
All I am really promoting in the books is the Golden Rule, which I hope everybody knows to be do as you would be done by. It has one or 2 flaws, but it is a good soundbite. Evil starts when you treat other people as things. There are perhaps worse crimes, but they begin when you treat other people as things.
Terry Pratchett
Image
Actors, said Granny, witheringly. As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more.
Terry Pratchett
Image
He stared at his feet. “I’m still very ignorant,” he said, “but at least I’m ignorant about really important things.
Terry Pratchett
Image
Of course, just because we've heard a spine-chilling, blood-curdling scream of the sort to make your very marrow freeze in your bones doesn't automatically mean there's anything wrong.
Terry Pratchett
Image
One of the highlights of the first Good Omens tour was Neil and I walking through New York singing Shoehorn with Teeth. Well, we'd had a good breakfast. And you don't get mugged, either.
Terry Pratchett
Image
You get all sorts of people in the library, and the librarian gets it all.
Terry Pratchett
Image
Balance. It was all about balance. That had been one of the first things that she had learned: the centre of the seesaw has neither up nor down, but upness and downness flow through it while it remains unmoved. You had to be the centre of the seesaw so the pain flowed through you, not into you. It was very hard. But she could do it!
Terry Pratchett
Image
The Assassin moved quietly from roof to roof until he was well away from the excitement around the Watch House. His movements could be called cat-like, except that he did not stop to spray urine up against things.
Terry Pratchett
Image
Rincewind gave his fingers a long shocked stare, as one might regard a gun that has been hanging on the wall for decades and has suddenly gone off and perforated the cat.
Terry Pratchett
Image
He's probably their battle poet, too. You mean he makes up heroic songs about famous battles? No, no. He recites poems that frighten the enemy....When a well-trained gonnagle starts to recite, the enemy's ears explode.
Terry Pratchett
Image
What's the good of having mastery over cosmic balance and knowing the secrets of fate if you can't blow something up?
Terry Pratchett
Image
You have to start out learning to believe the little lies. So we can believe the big ones? Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Terry Pratchett
Image
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.
Terry Pratchett
Image
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Terry Pratchett
Image
You are very clever, said the old man shyly. I would like to eat your brains, one day.
Terry Pratchett
Image
Sometimes I think a man could wander across the disc all his life and not see everything there is to see,' said Twoflower. 'And now it seems there are lots of other worlds as well. When I think I might die without seeing a hundredth of all there is to see it makes me feel,' he paused, then added, 'well, humble, I suppose. And very angry, of course.
Terry Pratchett
Image
I have a living will and I have friends, and I have money and I have hope.
Terry Pratchett
Image
There can be no better grounding for a lifetime as an author than to see humanity in all its various guises through the lens of the reporter for the town.
Terry Pratchett