Author: Terry Pratchett

It’s hard to be famous and alive.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Death Life

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel; this is essentially the basis of all military thinking.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Conflict Government Military War

Most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally evil, but by people being fundamentally people.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Characteristics History Time

What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: “Why is it so dark in here?”

(1948 – ) English novelist
Miscellaneous

This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Life

Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Characteristics

Only in our dreams are we free; the rest of the time we need wages.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Life Money

If life was a party, he wasn’t even in the kitchen.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Insults Life

Don’t think of it as dying; just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Death

Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Fools Intelligence Stupidity

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Intelligence People Things

Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Science/Weather

‘Pessimist’ is a word used by optimists to describe someone who sees the world for what it really is.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Communication Language Life

It’s the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Sex

The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Characteristics Honesty Intelligence Truth

The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Communication Conflict Reading/Writing

He] had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Intelligence Mind

A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Husbands Marriage Wives

Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Intelligence Stupidity

An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease; it made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Education

Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.

(1948 – ) English novelist
Science/Weather Things