Quotes, Sayings, Laws and other things people have said or written down.
Some are well known, some are drop dead famous, some are local, and some are blatantly obscure.
 
 
"...Lies could run around the world before truth could get its boots on. "

-- Lord De Worde, The Truth by Terry Pratchett (discworld series) Paraphrasing Mark Twain

A number of religions in Ankh-Morpork still practiced human sacrifice, except that they didn't really need to practice any more because they had got so good at it. City law said that only condemned criminals should be used, but that was all right because in most of the religions refusing to volunteer for sacrifice was an offence punishable by death.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

Thunder rolled. ... It rolled a six.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

No-one would have believed, in the final years of the Century of the Fruitbat, that Discworld affairs were being watched keenly and impatiently by intelligences greater than Man's, or at least much nastier; that their affairs were being scrutinised and studied as a man with a three-day appetite might study the All-You-Can-Gobble-For-A-Dollar menu outside Harga's House of Ribs...

-- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
"Woof bloody woof."

-- Gaspode the Wonder Dog. (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

The Archchancellor's most important job, as the Bursar saw it, was to sign things, preferably, from the Bursar's point of view, without reading them first.

-- Middle management explained. (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

'I'm a cat person, myself,' she said, vaguely.
A low-level voice said: 'Yeah? Yeah? Wash in your own spit, do you?'

-- It's a dog's life. (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

"There's nothin' wrong with bein' a son of a bitch."

-- Gaspode the wonder dog. (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

According to the history books, the decisive battle that ended the Ankh-Morpork Civil War was fought between two handfuls of bone-weary men in a swamp early one misty morning and, although one side claimed victory, ended with a practical score of Humans 0, Ravens 1000, which is the case with most battles.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Moving pictures)

A small crowd collected very easily in Ankh-Morpork. As a city, it had some of the most accomplished spectators in the universe. They'd watch anything, especially if there was any possibility of anyone getting hurt in an amusing way.

-- A universal concept... -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving pictures)
The world is made up of four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. This is a fact well known even to Corporal Nobbs. It's also wrong. There's a fifth element, and generally it's called Surprise.

-- (Terry Pratchett, The Truth)
There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!

-- (Terry Pratchett, The Truth)
"Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes."

-- (Terry Pratchett, The Truth)
"Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time)
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.

-- (Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant)
- "I think there may be one or two steps in your logic that I have failed
to grasp, Mister Stibbons," said the Archchancellor coldly. "I suppose
you're not intending to shoot your own grandfather, by any chance?"
- "Of course not!" snapped Ponder, "I don't even know what he looked like.
He died before I was born."
- "Ah-hah!"

-- The faculty members of Unseen University discuss time travel (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)
"PEOPLE'S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE PROCESS IS CALLED 'LIVING'."

-- Death (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)
"When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators, Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life."

-- Management slogan, Archchancellor Ridcully-style (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)
Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon -- he'd run them all.

-- Rincewind's understanding of the word racist (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)
[...] Vimes's grin was as funny as the one that moves very fast towards drowning men. And has a fin on top.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)
"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)
There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)
"Today Is A Good Day For Someone Else To Die!"

-- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)
Rumour is information distilled so finely that it can filter through anything. It does not need doors and windows -- sometimes it does not need people. It can exist free and wild, running from ear to ear without ever touching lips.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)
It was hard enough to kill a vampire. You could stake them down and turn them into dust and ten years later someone drops a drop of blood in the wrong place and guess who's back? They returned more times than raw broccoli.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)
It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to "serve the community" by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at least one old lady having her front room wallpapered so many times in six months that now she could only get in sideways.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)
"The singers all loathe the sight of one another, the chorus despises the singers, they both hate the orchestra, and everyone fears the conductor; the staff on one prompt side won't talk to the staff on the opposite prompt side, the dancers are all crazed from hunger in any case..."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)
Most people in Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with the cows.
[footnote: Er. That is to say, they went to bed at the same time as the chickens went to bed, and got up at the same time as the cows got up. Loosely worded sayings can really cause misunderstandings.]

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)
"But I don't believe in reincarnation!" he protested.
"SQUEAK."
And this, Mr Pounder understood with absolute rodent clarity, meant:
Reincarnation believes in you.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)
After you'd known Christine for any length of time, you found yourself fighting a desire to look into her ear to see if you could spot daylight coming the other way.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)
Nanny could get a statue to cry on her shoulder and say what it really thought about pigeons.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Greebo could, in fact, commit sexual harrassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

It is the fate of all banisters worth sliding down that there is something nasty waiting at the far end.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)
The question seldom addressed is where Medusa had snakes. Underarm hair is an even more embarassing problem when it keeps biting the top of the deodorant bottle.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)
People came to Ankh-Morpork to seek their fortune. Unfortunately, other people sought it too.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)
The Patrician was a pragmatist. He never tried to fix things that worked. Things that didn't work, however, got broken.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)
"Yes," said the skull. "Quit while you're a head, that's what I say."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)
If the Creator had said, "Let there be light" in Ankh-Morpork, he'd have gotten no further because of all the people saying "What colour?"

-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)
The Ramkins were more highly bred than a hilltop bakery, whereas Corporal Nobbs had been disqualified from the human race for shoving.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)
The Alchemist's Guild is opposite the Gambler's Guild. Usually. Sometimes it's above it, or below it, or falling in bits around it.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)
"Pride is all very well, but a sausage is a sausage."

-- Gaspode, of course (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)
He was said to have the body of a twenty-five year old, although no one knew where he kept it.

-- The Life and Times of Corporal Nobbs (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)
"Why's it called Ming?" said the Archchancellor, on cue. The Bursar tapped the pot. It went 'ming'.

-- Discworld archeology revealed (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)
"Have another drink, not-Corporal Nobby?" said Sergeant Colon unsteadily. "I do not mind if I do, not-Sgt Colon," said Nobby.

-- The joys of working undercover (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)
Death was Nature's way of telling you to slow down.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Strata)
He didn't look mad, but they never did.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Strata)

C.M.O.T. Dibbler liked to be up at first light, in case there was an opportunity to sell a worm to the early bird

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music pg263)
Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the king lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks round, the whole board could’ve been a republic in a dozen moves.

-- Commander Vimes view on games and chess in particular - Thud!

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