Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBEwas an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971; after the first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, he wrote two books a year on average. His 2011 Discworld novel Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-readership novel since records began in the...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 April 1948
CityBeaconsfield, England
I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.
If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.
I read the best works of some of the best satirists, and indeed best writers from the beginning of the Victorian era to about the 1960s. If you want to be a blacksmith, you go and watch the blacksmith working, and you work out what the blacksmith does.
The harder I work, the luckier I become.
It's actually true that I keep myself going by constantly promising myself that in response for the hard work I will be allowed to do some more hard work later on.
Once you've ruled out the impossible then whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. The problem lay in working out what was impossible, of course. That was the trick, all right. There was also the curious incident of the orangutan in the night-time.
One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble.
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.Elves are terrific. They beget terror.The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.No one ever said elves are nice.Elves are bad.
There's a door.Where does it go?It stays where it is, I think.
I would like a question answered today," said Tiffany. "Provided it's not the one about how you get baby hedgehogs," said the man. "No, "said Tiffany patiently. "It's about zoology." "Zoology eh? That's a big word, isn't it." "No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short.
The Quantum Weather Butterfly ( Papilio Tempestae ) is an undistinguished yellow color, its outstanding feature is its ability to create weather. This presumably began as a survival trait, since even an extremely hungry bird would find itself inconvenienced by a nasty localized tornado ( usually about 6 inches across ). From there it possibly became a secondary sexual characteristic, like the plumage of birds. Look at *me*, the male says, flapping his wings lazily in the canopy of the rain forest. I may be an undistinguished yellow color but in a fortnight's time, a thousand miles away, Freak Gales Cause Road Chaos. This is the butterfly of the storm
Now the melting pot was full of lumps again.
The place looked as though it had been visited by Gengiz Cohen (footnote: hence the term "wholesale destruction")
The thing about witchcraft," said Mistress Weatherwax, "is that it's not like school at all. First you get the test, and then afterward you spend years findin' out how you passed it. It's a bit like life in that respect