John Colin > John Colin's Quotes

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
― Terry Pratchett

“And what would humans be without love?"
RARE, said Death.”
― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. 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.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

“If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”
― Terry Pratchett

“This book was written using 100% recycled words.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

“HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM. (Death)”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth: Stage Adaptation

“I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on the covers... this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.”
― Terry Pratchett

“If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out," said the shopkeeper. "That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic

“The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord."
Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one.”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

“Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off.

A dog's wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but it has its own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. It's like having a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

“They didn't know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you've got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you're alive, when you really shouldn't be.”
― Terry Pratchett, Nation

“Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.”
― Terry Pratchett, Snuff

“The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo, my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct answer is: Hey, whatever I select.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies