Terry Pratchett

The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.

Five exclamation marks: the sure sign of an insane mind.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

And never resist a perfect moment.

What's the good of having mastery over cosmic balance and knowing the secrets of fate if you can't blow something up?

Education had been easy. Learning things had been harder.

There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.

Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. Hey, if you’re going to go on about genetics, you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he’ll grow up to be a demon just because his dad became one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me.

The space between the young reader’s eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril.’

Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.

But ye gotta know where ye're just gonna rush in. Ye cannae just rush in anywhere. It looks bad, havin' to rush oout again straight awa'.

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended.

At least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe.

It's an interesting fact that fewer than 17 % of Real cats end their lives with the same name they started with. Much family effort goes into selecting one at the start ("She looks like a Winnifred to me"), and the as the years roll by it suddenly finds itself being called Meepo or Ratbag.

Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should.

People are often so busy living that they never stop to wonder why.