Terry Pratchett Quotes

Humor is reason gone mad.

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

If your house is burning, wouldn't you try and put out the fire?

In a satire, you need foolishness.

Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense, he says, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted.

What if there's a fire?" Glenna said sweetly, and Cian merely smiled. "Then I guess you'd better open a window, and fly.

He set fire to some potatoes, then cooked some undelivered post in the embers." - Dad "Did he now? What a strange fellow. I would have done it the other way around." - Stafford

It takes a heap of sense to write good nonsense

I know it's not thematically in tune with my new job and all, but I find it effective. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day," I say. "But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it.

If folly disappeared, wit would starve.

Absurdity is my favorite brand of humor because deep down inside, in our subconscious, it's all surrealism. It's all abstract. The world is the surrealism, the absurdity, the humor - it all just overlaps.

I adore jokes. They're a theatrical contrivance, but the irony of all fiction is that you approach reality by avoiding it a bit; you spoof it a bit.

'The Ugly Truth' isn't trying to change the world with strong political opinions; it's just trying to entertain you with thoughts and ideas from my crazy mind!

You can make bleak things funny but if you're glib about it, it doesn't work.

It's just my natural way - to be funny. I don't know why that is. But as I've said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers for the most part. They think funny is not serious, but I think that funny can be even more serious than nonfunny. And it can be more affecting, too.

The whole point of comedy, what's fun, is taking the stupid thought I had and working it into something that makes a bunch of people laugh.

The best comedy is based on truth.

From my point of view, humour and irony include tragedy; they're two sides of the same coin.

I'll see something, and I'll go, 'Oh, wow, that's interesting,' because really, comedy comes from the truth.

I find heartbreaking stuff really funny.

I see the absurdity in things, and I think it's my job to point it out.

I don't find that I subscribe or believe in many rules about what comedy is and what makes it funny.

It's a grim business, this being funny. Every time you come up with a strong, satiric idea, the world tops it.

I just love well-organized, very serious nonsense.

Very few people took sordid things and made comedies out of them.