Thread by @TheOperaGeek

"Sometimes you had to take a look at yourself and then look away.”
― Terry Pratchett, Snuff

#Discworld

“They say that the eyes of some paintings can follow you around the room, a fact that I doubt, but I am wondering whether some music can follow you for ever.”
― Terry Pratchett, Snuff

Yes. It can.

#Discworld

“Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

(I'll add you can definitely substitute 'the ruling class' for Gods here.)

#Discworld

“It's hard to explain," said Brutha. "But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave... you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

#Discworld

“After all, when you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

#Discworld

(good advice for people who feel they need to give unsolicited advice just saying)

And this one, while not the deep thoughts of the others, is COMPLETELY TRUE AND MY FAVORITE QUOTE ON THE SUBJECT OF #Opera

#Discworld

“But that was just it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

#Discworld

“We’ve always been privileged, you see. Privilege just means ‘private law.’ That’s exactly what it means.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth

#Discworld

“William wondered why he always disliked people who said ‘no offence meant’. Maybe it was because they found it easier to say ‘no offence meant’ than actually refrain from giving offence.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Truth

#Discworld

Have a little Nanny Ogg to lighten the mood.

“Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

#Discworld

“The price for being the best is always... having to be the best.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

#Discworld

“The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.”
― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

#Discworld

“The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.”
― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

#Discworld

“People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.”
― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

#Discworld

“The news that they have nothing to fear is guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of innocents everywhere.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

#Discworld

“The problem is, people only think for themselves if you tell them to.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

#Discworld

“Ninety percent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

#Discworld

“You’re an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

#Discworld

"Personal’s not the same as important. People just think it is."
- Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

(Carrot also says this in Men at Arms.)

#Discworld

“You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.”
― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

#Discworld

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.

- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

The thing is, I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think, “What about me?” and you can just hear the universe replying, “Well, what about you?”

- Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
#Discworld

Oh no I'm back at it again

Oh dear

Buckle up

"No civil police force could hold out against an irate and resolute population. The trick is not to let them realize that. Yes?”
― Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals
(Lord Vetenari, ruminating on policing a la Vimes)

#Discworld

“When people who can write and read fight for other people who lack that knowledge, the result is just a new kind of stupidity. If you want to do something for them, build a library somewhere and leave the door open.”
- Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

#Discworld

“Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate.”
― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

Me: *looks at news, gives deadpan stare to audience*

#Discworld

“Money is all you can think about when all you have is a price, Carrot said.”
― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

#Discworld

“Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Only presumptuous fools plan. The wise man steers.”
― Terry Pratchett, Making Money

#Discworld

“When you have been a possession,
then you really understand what freedom means
in all its magnificent terror.”
― Terry Pratchett, Making Money

#Discworld

“The trouble with life was that you didn’t get a chance to practice before doing it for real.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

#Discworld

“People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

#Discworld

“Everything that was magical was just a way of describing the world in words it couldn’t ignore.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

#Discworld

“If you kept changing the way people saw the world, you ended up changing the way you saw yourself.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

#Discworld

“It's lies. It's all lies. Some of them are just prettier than others, that's all. People see what they think is there.”
― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

#Discworld

In honor of my dad...🤣

“It's not lying when you do it to officers!”
― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

#Discworld

“I am a bundle of suppressed instincts held together with spit and coffee.”
― Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

#Discworld

“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.”
― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

#Discworld

“What was it they said about the gods? They wouldn’t exist if there weren’t people to believe in them? And that applied to everything. Reality was what went on inside people’s heads.”
― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

#Discworld

(Forgive if I repeat myself. I have a lot of these quotes, and this thread is out of hand, and I'm too stubborn to check them all against each other.)

“It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

#Discworld

“She heard him mutter, 'Can you take away this grief?'
'I'm sorry,' she replied. 'Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

#Discworld

“The past needs to be remembered. If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

#Discworld

“And there are always those who would rather be behind evil than in front of it.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

#Discworld

This one.

“I have seen horrible things, and some of them all the more horrible because they were, well, normal.”
― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

#Discworld

And now a few from the one I've been avoiding. If you haven't read Shepherd's Crown...well...spoilers.

This is the last book that made me cry. Big cry.

“Alas for us, our dreams came true.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

#Discworld

“FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death.
NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT. . . .”
― Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

#Discworld

“Witches know that people die; and if they manages to die after a long time, leavin’ the world better than they went an’ found it, well then, that’s surely a reason to be happy. All the rest of it is just tidyin’ up.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

#Discworld

dammit not again stupid feelings

"Many people will help other people, just because, well, because they are other people. That's how it goes.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

#Discworld

“And at the end of time, living is about fightin’ against everything.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

#Discworld

“And Granny Weatherwax said, “I was younger when I last danced with you. But I am old now. There will be no more dances for me.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown

#Discworld

Yep there go the waterworks

I'm going to move on to another book now, because as ridiculous as it sounds, I know - it felt like losing a dear friend.
And the scene with Esme and Death just felt like a goodbye. Not from Esme, but from the author.

“Sometimes the only thing you could do for people was to be there.”
― Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

#Discworld

“But this didn't feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt like music.”
― Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

#Discworld

Ha, it me

“I MAY HAVE ALLOWED MYSELF SOME FLICKER OF EMOTION IN THE RECENT PAST, said Death, BUT I CAN GIVE IT UP ANY TIME I LIKE.”
― Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

#Discworld

“In my experience, what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid.”
― Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

THIS
IS
C O R R E C T

#Discworld

“There are millions of chords. There are millions of numbers. And everyone forgets the one that is a zero. But without the zero, numbers are just arithmetic. Without the empty chord, music is just noise.”
― Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

#Discworld

“It is said that whomsoever the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. In fact, whomsoever they wish to destroy, they first hand the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse & Acme Dynamite written on the side. It's more interesting, and doesn't take so long.”
― Soul Music

“Once people get the idea that they can listen to music for nothing, where will it end?”
― Terry Pratchett, Soul Music

*deadpan stare from Kelli*

#Discworld

“Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

#Discworld

“People like that don't need a reason apart from "because I can". They have a nightmare and try to make it happen.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

#Discworld

(and that is all for today. sorry if you are bored. but frankly, if you are bored, you aren't reading this. and if discworld bores you, h*ck you anyway)