"Chain letters," said the Tyrant. "The Chain Letter to the Ephebians. Forget Your Gods. Be Subjugated. Learn to Fear. Do not break the chain -- the last people who did woke up one morning to find fifty thousand armed men on their lawn."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
"Not a man to mince words. People, yes. But not words."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
"That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There's No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles."
-- The many and varied advantages of philosophy (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was like a red flag to a bu-- was like putting something very annoying in front of someone who was annoyed by it.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
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)