Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.

As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.

The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Being pretty on the inside means you don't hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that's what my grandma taught me.

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

When we worry about someone we send them a secret message – I don’t believe in you. When we worry about our life, we send ourselves a secret message – I don’t believe in me.

For almost 18 years you’re taught to sit down, shut up, and raise your hand. Then you have to decide what you’re going to do for the rest of your life.

REMIND ME AGAIN, he said, HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE.

NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

Search until you find a passion and go all out to excel in its expression.

I am an improviser, ... I improvise music. Whatever you want to call it all, it is all improvised music. I may capture it and go back and write it down for others, but it was originally improvised.

...to be paid for one's joy is to steal.

You compare yourself to somebody who you think is a peer, and you can totally lose the plot, and not understand that you are nothing like them in the first place, and it was never you versus anybody.

One could imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand.

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