A Blink of the Screen Quotes

“I did start out in witchcraft to get boys, to tell you the truth.'
'Think I don't know that?'
'What did you start out to get, Esme?'
Granny stopped, and looked up at the frosty sky and then down at the ground.
'Dunno,' she said at last.'Even, I suppose.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“ASTONISHING, said Death. REALLY ASTONISHING. LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Firstly,” said Ponder, “Mr Pessimal wants to know what we do here.”
“Do? We are the premier college of magic!” said Ridcully.
“But do we teach?”
“Only if no alternative presents itself,” said the Dean. “We show ‘em where the library is, give ‘em a few little chats, and graduate the survivors. If they run into any problems, my door is always metaphorically open.”
“Metaphorically, sir?” said Ponder.
“Yes. But technically, of course, it’s locked.”
“Explain to him that we don’t do things, Stibbons,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “We are academics.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“But a girl starting out in life might well say to herself: 'Is this it? You worked hard and denied yourself things and what you got at the end was hard work and self-denial?”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“You fight a war to change the world, and it changes into a world with no place in it for you, the fighter. Those who fight for the bright future are not always, by nature, well fitted to live in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Captain Vimes believed in logic, in much the same way as a man in a desert believes in ice – i.e., it was something he really needed, but this just wasn’t the place for it.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“There is a blissful period of existence which the Yen Buddhists* call plinki. It is defined quite precisely as that interval between waking up and being hit on the back of the head by all the problems that kept you awake the night before; it ends when you realize that this was the morning everything was going to look better in, and it doesn’t.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“When people talk about their great past they’re usually trying to excuse the mediocre present.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Short stories always seem to cost me blood, and I envy the people who do them for fun.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Nanny had nothing against witches being married. It wasn’t as if there were rules. She herself had had many husbands, and had even been married to three of them. But”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“You fight a war to change the world, and it changes into a world with no place in it for you, the fighter.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“No one ever got anywhere by thinking all the time.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Explain to him that we don’t do things, Stibbons,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “We are academics.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“it wasn’t nice, what you didn’t do. It was like pullin’ away someone’s chair when they’re expecting to sit down.” “People who don’t look where they’re sitting should stay stood up,”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“She herself didn’t like winning things. Winning was a habit that was hard to break and brought you a dangerous status that was hard to defend.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Granny wasn’t exactly friendless, but what she commanded mostly was respect. People learned to respect storm clouds, too. They refreshed the ground. You needed them. But they weren’t nice.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Even if someone was your worst enemy, you invited them in and gave them tea and biscuits. In fact, the worser your enemy, the better the crockery you got out and the higher the quality of the biscuits. You might wish black hell on ’em later, but while they were under your roof you’d feed ’em till they choked.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“It was the same in just about every trade. Sooner or later someone decided it needed organizing, and the one thing you could be sure of was that the organizers weren’t going to be the people who, by general acknowledgement, were at the top of their craft. They were working too hard. To be fair, it generally wasn’t done by the worst, neither. They were working hard, too. They had to. No, it was done by the ones who had just enough time and inclination to scurry and bustle.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“I hope he is never taught in schools—his biography on the back of the books used once to claim that “some people had accused him of literature,” and of course he is literature, but best enjoyed in solitude and retreat.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Captain Vimes believed in logic, in much the same way as a man in a desert believes in ice—i.e., it was something he really needed, but this just wasn’t the place for it.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Fools rush in, but they are laggards compared to little old ladies with nothing left to fear.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“It would be hard to be deader without special training.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“People liked you when you almost won, and bought you drinks. “She only just lost” was a much better compliment than “she only just won.” Runners-up”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“I never does anyone a bad turn if I can’t do ’em a good one, Gytha, you know that. I don’t have to do no frills or fancy labels.” Nanny”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“Cogito ergo cluck.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“See how Cerberus loves his Yummy-Doggy! Your dog can have that glossy coat, those glistening fangs, those three heads, if you feed him Yummy-Doggy! Yummy-Doggy in the handy two-ounce tin! Cerberus says Yummy-Doggy is scr-r-rumptious! Ask for Yummy-Doggy!!”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Short Fiction

“LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“May I continue?” YES, BUT NOT INDEFINITELY, said Death. EVERYTHING IS TRANSIENT.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

“But in truth the enmity is there because no one can remember when it wasn’t, and so it continues because everything is done in completely justifiable revenge for the revenge that was taken in response to the revenge for the vengeance that was taken earlier, and so on. Humans never do this sort of thing, much.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction