Discworld Quotes

Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.

Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self.

We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.

Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.

"That's blasphemy," said the vampire. He gasped as Vimes shot him a glance like sunlight. "That's what people say when the voiceless speak."

"It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country," he read. "This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind."

Words in the heart cannot be taken.

You did something because it had always been done, and the explanation was “but we’ve always done it this way.” A million dead people can’t have been wrong, can they?

There were no public health laws in Ankh-Morpork. It would be like installing smoke detectors in Hell.

Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk.

Gentlemen, no fighting please. This is, after all, a council of war.

Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.

Personal is not the same as important.

The evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you are going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.

It's a sad and terrible thing that high-born folk really have thought that the servants would be totally fooled if spirits were put into decanters that were cunningly labelled backwards. And also throughout history the more politically conscious butler has taken it on trust, and with rather more justification, that his employers will not notice if the whisky is topped up with eniru.

The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.

Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened

Don't think of it as dying, just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.