The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.

There's a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork. And it's wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people just walk along them the wrong way.

The worst thing you can do is nothing.

There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.

Rincewind had always been happy to think of himself as a racist. The One Hundred Meters, the Mile, the Marathon -- he'd run them all.

Rincewind could scream for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.

Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant ‘idiot.

...and the funny thing was that people who weren't entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

I have, before now, waited for a pen to perform a macro.

You never knew about people, like you never knew how deep a pond was because all you saw was the top.

Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than war.

The myth of "free choice" begins with "free market" and "free trade". When five transnational corporations control the seed market, it is not a free market, it is a cartel.

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war any more.

Why would I want a place of my own? Then I would have to things worry about, like doing laundry and having food in the fridge.

The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. ... War is Peace.

The darkest nights produce the brightest stars.

The West pays money and piles up pressure to cause a strife between Islamic countries so that Muslims would kill each other and the West can obtain its desirable outcome thereby.

Why should I ask the wise men: Whence is my beginning? I am busy with the thought: Where will be my end?

I was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales.

For about ten years now, the struggle for democracy and the respect of human rights has been in the focus point - if not a commodity - of political groups aiming to rise to power.