Interesting Times Quotes

“Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“There is a curse.
They say:
May you live in interesting times.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn’t a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Probably the last sound heard before the Universe folded up like a paper hat would be someone saying, “What happens if I do this?”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Many things went on at Unseen University and, regrettably, teaching had to be one of them. The faculty had long ago confronted this fact and had perfected various devices for avoiding it. But this was perfectly all right because, to be fair, so had the students.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“You could say to the universe this is not fair. And the universe would say: Oh, isn’t it? Sorry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all along. Fate wins.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“The Empire's got something worse than whips all right. It's got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“I heard the Empire has a tyrannical and repressive government!"
"What form of government is that?" said Ponder Stibbons.
"A tautology," said the Dean, from above.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“It was impossible for him to get bored. He just didn't have the imagination.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“They stole from rich merchants and temples and kings. They didn't steal from poor people; this was not because there was anything virtuous about poor people, it was simply because poor people had no money.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“In life, as in breakfast cereal, it is always best to read the instructions on the box.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“He wanted to say: how could you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you could do with the peasents was to leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting for those who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Oh, no," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back. "Not that. That's meddling with things you don't understand."
"Well, we are wizards," said Ridcully. "We're supposed to meddle in things we don't understand. If we hung around waitin' till we understood things we'd never get anything done.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“And when in doubt, take all your clothes off,' said Caleb. 'What for?' 'Sign of a good berserk, taking all your clothes off. Frightens the hell out of the enemy. If anyone starts laughing, stab 'em one.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“A foot on the neck is nine points of the law.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“with the expression of one who knows that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“You know, you sound a very educated man for a barbarian,” said Rincewind. “Oh, dear me, I didn’t start out a barbarian. I used to be a school teacher. That’s why they call me Teach.” “What did you teach?” “Geography. And I was very interested in Auriental* studies. But I decided to give it up and make a living by the sword.” “After being a teacher all your life?” “It did mean a change of perspective, yes.” “But … well … surely … the privation, the terrible hazards, the daily risk of death…” Mr. Saveloy brightened up. “Oh, you’ve been a teacher, have you?”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Do teachers go anywhere special when they die?’ said Cohen. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Mr Saveloy gloomily. He wondered for a moment whether there really was a great Free Period in the sky. It didn’t sound very likely. Probably there would be some marking to do.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Look, I don’t mind summoning some demon and asking it,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “That’s normal. But building some mechanical contrivance to do your thinking for you, that’s … against Nature.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Ricewind had always relied on running away. But somerimes, perhaps, you had to stand and fight, if only because there was nowhere left to run.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“with one mighty bound, you could be free. Provided you realized it was one of your options.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Cohen looked at the forest of lances and pennants. Hundreds of thousands of men looked like quite a lot of men when you saw them close to.

"I suppose," he said, slowly, "that none of you has got some amazing plan you've been keeping quiet about?"

"We thought you had one," said Truckle.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“There was silence in the square, except for the sound of several thousand people being astonished.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Once you were in the hands of a Grand Vizier, you were dead. Grand Viziers were always scheming megalomaniacs. It was probably in the job description: "Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted minister.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“The Four Horsemen whose Ride presages the end of the world are known to be Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence. But even less significant events have their own Horsemen. For example, the Four Horsemen of the Common Cold are Sniffles, Chesty, Nostril, and Lack of Tissues; the Four Horsemen whose appearance foreshadows any public holiday are Storm, Gales, Sleet, and Contra-flow.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“They were probably descended from people who learned that if you look too hard at anyone on horseback you receive a sharp stinging sensation such as might be obtained by a stick around the ear. Not looking up at people on horseback had become hereditary. People who stared at people on horseback in what was considered to be a funny way never survived long enough to breed.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“No one likes a poor thief.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

“Of the three things that most people know about the horse, the third is that, over a short distance, it can’t run as fast as a man. As Rincewind had learned to his advantage, it has more legs to sort out.”
― Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times