TERRY PRATCHETT APPRECIATION
“It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it anymore you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they’ll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing.”
– Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Terry Pratchett
Author
Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE, better known as Terry Pratchett, was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels. Wikipedia
Born: April 28, 1948, Beaconsfield, United Kingdom
Died: March 12, 2015, Broad Chalke, United Kingdom
Movies and TV shows: Hogfather, Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal
Short stories: Troll Bridge, Theatre of Cruelty
Quotes
- Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
- Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.
- The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Understanding – Terry Pratchett quote
‘Everything I have just said is nonsense. It bears no resemblance to the truth of the matter in any way at all. But it is a lie that you can … understand, I think.’ (TOT)
Truth – Terry Pratchett quote
He’d found hard truth less hard than an easy lie. (TT)
Police – Terry Pratchett quote
‘I always think one should lie to policemen; it is so very good for the soul and, indeed, good for the policemen.’ (Do)
Stories – Terry Pratchett quote
‘Never mind about the stories. They’re just metaphors.’
‘Interesting lies,’ translated Bane. (CP)
Business – Terry Pratchett quote
… the traditions of the Dibbler clan would never let a mere disastrous fact get in the way of a spiel. (LC)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
Igneous had always found the general denial was more reliable than the specific refutation. (FC)
Conversation – Terry Pratchett quote
That’s rumour for you. If we could modulate it with the truth, how useful it could be …. (FC)
Business – Terry Pratchett quote
… Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler, purveyor of absolutely anything that could be sold hurriedly from an open suitcase in a busy street and was guaranteed to have fallen off the back of an oxcart. (GG)
Human Behaviour – Terry Pratchett quote
It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it any more you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they’ll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing. (GG)
Wisdom – Terry Pratchett quote
Could they do it? They were old men. And then he thought, Yes, they are old men. They have been old men for a long time, which means they have learned many things. Like lying, and being crafty and, most importantly, dissembling. (SC)
Appearance – Terry Pratchett quote
‘I assure you the thought never crossed my mind, lord.’
‘Indeed? Then if I were you I’d sue my face for slander’. (COM)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘People want lies to live by.’ (N)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘You can’t shit a shitter, you little shit.’ (LW)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘I am a liar for the purpose of amusement, publicity, trivial oneupmanship, personal profit and the gaiety of nations, but I’m not lying to you now’. (RS)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
… the builder speculates about how far away he can be and with how much money, before the buyer finds that the footings have, in fact, no feet, the septic tank is one foot deep with a tendency to flow backwards, and the bricks owe a lot to that most organic and venerable of all building materials, cow shit. The whole business traditionally begins with a plot, in every sense of the word. (RS)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
They are said to be incapable of lying, although this piece of information has been provided by the Zoons themselves, causing, as it were, a philosophical conundrum. (Sn)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘Why is it, Rob Anybody, that you persist in lying when you are caught red-handed?’
‘Ah, weel, that’s an easy one, miss, said Rob Anybody, who was technically the head man of the Nac Mac Feegles. ‘After all, ye ken, what would be the point of lyin’ when you had nae done anything wrong?’ (ISWM)
Wisdom – Terry Pratchett quote
Bits of Miss Tick’s teachings floated through her head: Always face what you fear. Have enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it’s not your fault it’s your responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two mirrors. Never cackle. Do what you must do. Never lie, but you don’t always have to be honest. Never wish. Especially don’t wish upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open you eyes, and then open your eyes again. (HFS)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘You’re more full of bullshit than a frightened herd on fresh pasture, Mr Lipwig.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll take that as a compliment.’ (MM)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘An explanation?’ he said, shifting uneasily. ‘Oh, aye. An Explanation. Nae problemo. An Explanation. Er … what kind would you like?’
‘What kind? I just want the truth!’
‘Aye? Oh. The truth? Are you sure?’ Rob ventured, rather nervously. ‘I can do much more interestin’ Explanations than that -‘ (W)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘I heard Jeannie say you come up with Explanations no other Feegle in the world would try,’ said Daft Wullie admiringly.
‘Aye, that’s quite likely,’ said Rob swelling with pride. ‘And Feegles has got a fine tradition o’ huge Explanations.’ (W)
Truth – Terry Pratchett quote
Er … would you accept a wee bitty lie?’ Rob said.
‘No!’
‘It’s interestin’. There’s dragons an’unicorns in it -’
‘No. I want the truth!’
‘Ach, it’s so boring.’ (W)
Truth – Terry Pratchett quote
‘What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?’
‘I’d tell you an outright lie, sir.’ (Th)
Truth – Terry Pratchett quote
Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known. (GP)
Lying – Terry Pratchett quote
‘Too many lies and there’s no truth to go back to.’ (MR)
Human Behaviour – Terry Pratchett quote
Knowing how to use other people’s vanity was a martial art all in itself… (TOT)
Self Assertion – Terry Pratchett quote
… if they couldn’t bend their thinking around the world, they bent the world around their thinking. (HFS)
Success – Terry Pratchett quote
Ridcully felt there was indeed room at the top, and he was occupying all of it. (LC)
Power – Terry Pratchett quote
‘There are different ways to eat people …’ (N)
Science – Terry Pratchett quote
… there was no such thing as absolute control, not in a fully functioning universe. There was just a variable amount of lack of control. (DW)
Life – Terry Pratchett quote
Control – Terry Pratchett quote
Like most people with no grasp whatsoever of real economics, Mustrum Ridcully equated ‘proper financial control’ with the counting of paperclips. (H)
Conflict – Terry Pratchett quote
The senior wizards gathered round, ready to help those less fortunate than themselves remain that way. (H)
Human Behaviour – Terry Pratchett quote
Sometimes human beings are very much like bees. Bees are fiercely protective of their hive, provided you are outside it. Once you’re in, the workers sort of assume that it must have been cleared by management and take no notice … (GO)
Decisions – Terry Pratchett quote
’You have got a choice. You can either be on the stage, just a performer, just going through the lines … or you can be outside it, and know how the script works, where the scenery hangs, and where the trapdoors are.’ (Ma)
Fear – Terry Pratchett quote
A psychiatrist, dealing with a man who fears he is being followed by a large and terrible monster, will endeavour to convince him that monsters don’t exist. Granny Weatherwax would simply give him a chair to stand on and a very heavy stick. (Ma)
Control – Terry Pratchett quote
‘I feel like a fish out of water.’
‘Well, the way I see it, it’s up to you to make your own water,’ said Nanny …. (LL)
Self Assertion – Terry Pratchett quote
Other people would probably say: I wasn’t myself. But Granny Weatherwax didn’t have anyone else to be. (LL)
Control – Terry Pratchett quote
… she was so organized that she had too much organization for one person and it overflowed in every direction. (JB)
Insanity – Terry Pratchett quote
‘The man was mad!’
‘He had a very tidy mind,’ said the Bursar.
‘Same thing.’ (MP)
Human Behaviour – Terry Pratchett quote
It was amazing, this mystic business. You tell them a lie, and then when you don’t need it any more you tell them another lie and tell them they’re progressing along the road to wisdom. Then instead of laughing they follow you even more, hoping that at the heart of all the lies they’ll find the truth. And bit by bit they accept the unacceptable. Amazing. (GG)
Control – Terry Pratchett quote
He had a cold certainty that while of course no one could possibly blame him for all this, everybody would. (ER)
Trouble – Terry Pratchett quote
He felt that the last couple of hours had somehow carried him along without him actually touching the sides, and for a moment he nursed the strangely consoling feeling that his life was totally beyond his control and whatever happened no one could blame him. (ER)
Libraries – Terry Pratchett quote
… anybody who knew the Dewey decimal system by heart was a person not to panic until the situation had been most carefully considered. (JD)
Change – Terry Pratchett quote
‘The world is changing and it needs its shepherds and sometimes its butchers.’ (RS)
Planning – Terry Pratchett quote
‘If you take enough precautions, you never need to take precautions.’ (RS)
Technology – Terry Pratchett quote
That was what technology was doing. It was your slave but, in a sense, it might be the other way round. (RS)
Poverty – Terry Pratchett quote
… you didn’t need to grind the faces of the poor if you taught them to do their own grinding. (ISWM)
Police – Terry Pratchett quote
‘No civil police force could hold out against an irate and resolute population. The trick is not to let them realize that.’ (UA)
Style – Terry Pratchett quote
‘We play and are played and the best we can hope for is to do it with style.’ (UA)
Whaddaya Say?