{"author":"Terry Pratchett","author_id":"Terry+Pratchett","total_quotes":877,"quotes":[{"text":"- 'Surely you have considered terrorist activity?'There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise chickens somewhere, 'Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite strong terrorists. Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours.'-- The BBC interviews a nuclear spokesperson (Terry Pratchett \u0026 Neil Gaiman, Good Omens).","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["fantasy","funny","humour"],"id":541,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"Drought-struck farmers pray for rain, in the express hope that the universe or owner thereof will hear the words and suspense the laws of meteorology for their benefit. Some, of course, actually believe just that, and for all anyone can prove they could be right.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["belief","prayer"],"id":563,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"It was a large room, heavily outfitted with the usual badly ventilated furnaces, rows of bubbling crucibles, and one stuffed alligator. Things floated in jars. The air smelled of a limited life expectancy.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["alchemy","science"],"id":1002,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["home","journeys","travel"],"id":1057,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"Welcome to fear, said Moist to himself. It's hope, turned inside out. You know it can't go wrong, you're sure it can't go wrong...But it might.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["chance","fear","hope"],"id":1567,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"He said to people: you’re free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he’d been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who’ve seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door...","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["freedom","life","tyranny"],"id":2763,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"And although the space they occupy isn’t like normalspace, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. Not a cubic inch there but is filled by a claw, a talon, a scale, the tip of atail, so the effect is like one of those trick drawings andyour eyeballs eventually realize that the space between eachdragon is, in fact, another dragon.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["humor","science"],"id":2889,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"It's witchcraft with all the crusts cut off, and real witchcraft is ALL crusts.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["magic","witchcraft"],"id":3544,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"And he goes around killing people?” said Mort. He shook his head. “There’s no justice.”Death sighed. No, he said... There’s just me.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["death","justice","mort"],"id":4260,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"},{"text":"The Captain of the Watch says if you're still in the City by sunrise he will personally have you buried alive.","author":"Terry Pratchett","tags":["humour"],"id":4286,"author_id":"Terry+Pratchett"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":877,"pages":88,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}