Quotes by Theme


Here are some Discworld quotes (no Good Omens) organized by theme. Enjoy!

Go to Quotes by Book


On Life, the Universe, and Everything

The trouble is that things never get better, they just stay the same, only more so.-Eric

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.-Jingo

"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time."-Hogfather

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.-Hogfather

"What is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?"
"Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper."-The Light Fantastic

"Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead."-The Light Fantastic

In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.-Lords and Ladies

There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.-Small Gods

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!-The Truth

A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.-The Truth

"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."-Witches Abroad

On Discworld

On Magic

"'Chapter Fifteen, Elementary Necromancy'", she read out loud. "'Lesson One: Correct Use of Shovel...'"-Jingo

It was here that the thaum, hitherto believed to be the smallest possible particle of magic, was succesfully demonstrated to be made up of /resons/ (Lit.: 'Thing-ies') or reality fragments. Currently research indicates that each reson is itself made up of a combination of at least five 'flavours', known as 'up', 'down', 'sideways', 'sex appeal' and 'peppermint'.-Lords and Ladies

A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal sized billiard balls.-The Light Fantstic

People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to a sticky end. All over the entire room, sometimes.-Moving Pictures

On Wizards and Witches

If broomsticks were cars, this one would be a split-window Morris Minor.-Equal Rites

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, especially simian ones. They are not all that subtle."-Lords and Ladies

Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.-Lords and Ladies

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal often offends, I read somewhere."-Mort

There was nothing finer than a wizard dressed up formally, until someone could find a way of inflating a Bird of Paradise, possibly by using an elastic band and some kind of gas.-Jingo

The subject of wizards and sex is a complicated one, but as has already been indicated it does, in essence, boil down to this: when it comes to wine, women and song, wizards are allowed to get drunk and croon as much as they like.-Sourcery

On Unseen University

Old Tom was the single cracked bronze bell in the University bell tower. The clapper dropped out shortly after it was cast, but the bell still tolled out some tremendously sonorous silences every hour.-Eric

The librarian was, ex officio, a member of the college council. No-one had been able to find any rule about orang-utans being barred, although they had surreptiously looked very hard for one.-Eric

There had been some desultory talk about putting up a statue to Rincewind but, by the curious alchemy that tends to apply in these sensitive issues, this quickly became a plaque, then a note on the Roll of Honour, and finally a motion of censure for being improperly dressed.-Eric

"Students made it long ago," said Rincewind. "Handy way in and out after lights out."
"Ah," said Twoflower, "I understand. Over the wall and out to brightly-lit tavernas to drink and sing and recite poetry, yes?"
"Nearly right except for the singings and the poetry, yes," said Rincewind.-The Light Fantastic

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.-Moving Pictures

"Students?" barked the Archchancellor.
"Yes, Master. You know? They're the thinner ones with the pale faces? Because we're a university? They come with the whole thing, like rats --"-Moving Pictures

On Ankh-Morpork

No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpock. Well technically they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.-Eric

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?"-Men At Arms

The river Ankh is probably the only river in the universe on which the investigators can chalk the outline of the corpse.-Men At Arms

"When a man is tired of Ankh-Morpork, he is tired of ankle-deep slurry."-Mort

Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder.-Mort

On Government

"Young Edward thinks that there is no lake of blood too big to wade through to put a rightful king on a throne, no deed too base in defence of a crown. A romantic, in fact."-Men At Arms

The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.-Mort

"I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts," said Brutha. "That way, everyone's happy."-Small Gods

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

Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government.-Witches Abroad

On God and Religion

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.-Guards! Guards!

This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts..."-Hogfather

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

"It's a god-eat-god world."-Small Gods

Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.-Small Gods

The trouble with being a god is that you've got no one to pray to.-Small Gods

Most gods find it hard to walk and think at the same time.-Small Gods

"He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at."-Small Gods

In the second scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly: "Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom is sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?" Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: "A fish!" And Clodpool went away, satisfied.-Thief of Time

The Yen Buddhists are the richest religious sect in the universe. They hold that the accumulation of money is a great evil and a burden to the soul. They therefore, regardless of personal hazard, see it as their unpleasant duty to acquire as much as possible in order to reduce the risk to innocent people.-Witches Abroad

In fact, no gods anywhere play chess. They prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight to Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.-Wyrd Sisters

On the Battle of the Sexes

The students were staring at her in the manner of those who have heard of the species 'female' but have never expected to get this close to one.-Soul Music

Above the hearth was a huge pokerwork sign saying "Mother". No tyrant in the whole history of the world had ever achieved a domination so complete.-Wyrd Sisters

"'Tis not right, a woman going into such places by herself." Granny nodded. She thoroughly approved of such sentiments so long as there was, of course, no suggestion that they applied to her.-Wyrd Sister

On Love and "Goings On"

A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.-The Fifth Elephant

No male had ever touched Agnes before, except perhaps to push her over and steal her sweets.-Maskerade

People would take pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys.-Maskerade

The door was still ajar, but there was a tentative tap on it which said, in a kind of metaphorical morse code, that the tapper could see very well that Carrot was in his room with a scantily clad woman and was trying to knock without actually being heard.-Men At Arms

"He's in love," said Gaspode. "It's very tricky."
"Yeah, I know how it is," said the cat sympathetically. "People throwing old boots and things at you."-Moving Pictures

"I'd like to know if I could compare you to a summer's day. Because -- well, June 12th was quite nice, and..."-Wyrd Sisters

On School and Childhood

"Real children don't go hoppity-skip unless they are on drugs."-Hogfather

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.-Hogfather

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.-Moving Pictures

On the Rich and the Poor

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.-Hogfather

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

Upper-class etiquette in Ankh-Morpork held that, while you could snub your friends any time you felt like it, it was the height of bad form to be impolite to your worst enemy.-Night Watch

"Take it from me, whenever you see a bunch of buggers puttering around talking about truth and beauty and the best way of attacking Ethics, you can bet your sandals it's all because dozens of other poor buggers are doing all the real work around the place."-Small Gods

The class was learning about some revolt in which some peasants had wanted to stop being peasants and, since the nobles had won, had stopped being peasants really quickly.-Soul Music

On the Theater and Opera

"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..."-Maskerade

"Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,' said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. 'There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what I'm doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely."-Maskerade

"Actors," said Granny, witheringly. "As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more."-Wyrd Sisters

"He didn't take any notice!" whispered Tomjon.
"A born critic," said the dwarf.-Wyrd Sisters

On Literture and Writing

A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.-Guard! Guards!

The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.-Guards! Guards!

The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable here that "all men spoke of his prowess" any bard who valued his life would add hastily "except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him."-The Light Fantastic

And he dreamed the dream of all those who publish books, which was to have so much gold in your pockets you would have to employ two people just to hold your trousers up.-Maskerade

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.-Reaper Man

Bad spelling can be lethal. For example, the greedy Seriph of Al-Yabi was cursed by a badly-educated deity and for some days everything he touched turned to Glod, which happened to be the name of a small dwarf from a mountain community hundreds of miles away who found himself magically dragged to the kingdom and relentlessly duplicated. Some two thousand Glods later the spell wore off. These days, the people of Al-Yabi are renowned for being remarkably short and bad-tempered.-Witches Abroad

On Policing

He wasn't strictly aware of it, but he treated even geography as if he was investigating a crime (did you see who carved out the valley? Would you recognize that glacier if you saw it again?)-The Fifth Elephant

Cuddy had only been a guard for a few days, but already he had absorbed one important and basic fact: it is almost impossible for anyone to be in a street without breaking the law.-Men at Arms

On War and Fighting

He was trying to find some help in the ancient military journals of General Tacticus, whose intelligent campaigning had been so successful that he'd lent his very name to the detailed prosecution of martial endeavour, and had actually found a section headed What to Do If One Army Occupies a Well-fortified and Superior Ground and the Other Does Not, but since the first sentence read "Endeavour to be the one inside" he'd rather lost heart.-Carpe Jugulum

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.-Eric

It was possibly the most circumspect advance in the history of military manoeuvres, right down at the bottom end of the scale that things like the Charge of the Light Brigade are at the top of.-Guards! Guards!

The Battle of Koom Valley is the only one known to history where both sides ambushed each other.-Men At Arms

Although the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome.-Mort

The Rust family had produced great soldiers by the undemanding standards of "Deduct Your Own Casualties From Those Of The Enemy, And If The Answer Is A Postive Sum, It Was A Glorious Victory" school of applied warfare.-Night Watch

Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off.-Witches Abroad

On Death

Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when you shout, "Where's my clean socks?", no-one answers.-Eric

The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.-Eric

"When it's time to stop living, I will certainly make Death my number one choice!"-The Last Continent

"My granny says that dying is like going to sleep," Mort added, a shade hopefully.
I WOULDN'T KNOW. I HAVE DONE NEITHER.-Mort

YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE?
"Yes. Yes, of course."
Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.-Small Gods

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