Pyramids Quotes

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

“Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“All assassins had a full-length mirror in their rooms, because it would be a terrible insult to anyone to kill them when you were badly dressed.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Never trust a species that grins all the time. It’s up to something.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

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

“Her singing always cheered him up. Life seemed so much brighter when she stopped.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“The fact is that camels are far more intelligent than dolphins. They are so much brighter that they soon realised that the most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendants not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships or being patronized rigid by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it. So they long ago plumped for a lifestyle that, in return for a certain amount of porterage and being prodded with sticks, allowed them adequate food and grooming and the chance to spit in a human's eye and get away with it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“It was said that life was cheap in Ankh-Morpork. This was of course, completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death for free.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“When you die, the first thing you lose is your life. The next thing is your illusions.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn’t believing. It’s where belief stops, because it isn’t needed anymore.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“All things are defined by names. Change the name, and you change the thing.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“That’s how we survive infinity - we kill it by breaking it up into small bits.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Teppic hadn’t been educated. Education had just settled on him, like dandruff.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“He'd wanted changes. It was just that he'd wanted things to stay the same, as well.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“The trouble with gods is that after enough people start believing in them, they begin to exist. And what begins to exist isn't what was originally intended.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don’t normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Priests were metal-reinforced overshoes. They saved your soles. This is an Assassin joke.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Broadly, therefore, the three even now lurching across the deserted planks of the Brass Bridge were dead drunk assassins and the men behind them were bent on inserting the significant comma.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“He sighed and opened the black box and took out his rings and slipped them on. Another box held a set of knives and Klatchian steel, their blades darkened with lamp black. Various cunning and intricate devices were taken from velvet bags and dropped into pockets. A couple of long-bladed throwing tlingas were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down the back of his cloak; Teppic picked a slim tin container with an assortment of darts, their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the dark.

He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an afterthought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag of assorted caltrops and a set of brass knuckles.

Teppic picked up his hat and checked it's lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“It will certainly show what our ancestors would be thinking if they were alive today. People have often speculated about this. Would they approve of modern society, they ask, would they marvel at present-day achievements? And of course this misses a fundamental point. What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“The role of listeners has never been fully appreciated. However, it is well known that most people don’t listen. They use the time when someone else is speaking to think of what they’re going to say next. True Listeners have always been revered among oral cultures, and prized for their rarity value; bards and poets are ten a cow, but a good Listener is hard to find, or at least hard to find twice.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“What’s Ephebe like?” said Ptraci.

“I’ve never been there. Apparently it’s ruled by a Tyrant.”

“I hope we don’t meet him, then”

Teppic shook his head. “It’s not like that,” he said. “They have a new Tyrant every five years and they do something to him first.” He hesitated. “I think they ee-lect him.”

“Is that something like they do to tomcats and bulls and things?”

“Er.”

“You know. To make them stop fighting and be more peaceful.”

Teppic winced. “To be honest, I’m not sure,” he said. “But I don’t think so. They’ve got something they do it with, I think it’s called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man, one—” He paused. The political history lesson seemed a very long while ago, and had introduced concepts never heard of in Djelibeybi or in Ankh-Morpork, for that matter. He had a stab at it anyway. “One man, one vet.”

“That’s for the eelecting, then?”

He shrugged. It might be, for all he knew. “The point is, though, that everyone can do it. They’re very proud of it. Everyone has—” he hesitated again, certain now that things were amiss—“the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extractions. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lost of other people. But everyone apart from them. It’s a very enlightened civilization.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“The conversation of human beings seldom interested him, but it crossed his mind that the males and females always got along best when neither actually listened fully to what the other one was saying.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Tomorrow here is just like yesterday, warmed over.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“We're really good at it, Teppic thought. Mere animals couldn't possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Seven thousand years is just one day at a time”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“Camels have a very democratic approach to the human race. They hate every member of it, without making any distinctions for rank or creed.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“No cabe duda de que poseemos un auténtico talento natural para esta clase de cosas -pensó Teppic-. Unos simples animales jamás podrían comportarse de esta manera. Ser realmente estúpido es algo que sólo está al alcance de un ser humano.”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

“You Bastard was thinking: there seems to be some growing dimensional instability here, swinging from zero to nearly forty-five degrees by the look of it. How interesting. I wonder what’s causing it? Let V equal 3. Let Tau equal Chi/4. cudcudcud Let Kappa/y be an Evil-Smelling-Bugger* (* Renowned as the greatest camel mathematician of all time, who invented a math of eight-dimensional space while lying down with his nostrils closed in a violent sandstorm.) differential tensor domain with four imaginary spin co-efficients. . .”
― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids