A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

I think I have always had a little humor.

Even though I write about the human race, the further away from them, the better I feel. Two miles is great; two thousand miles is beautiful.

The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house, that’s what it means.

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

The extreme weakness of quantum gravitational effects now poses some philosophical problems; maybe nature is trying to tell us something new here: maybe we should not try to quantize gravity.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‚Where’s the self-help section?‘ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.

There’s many a man has more hair than wit.

I come from a poor family, I have seen poverty. The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.

O wise man! Give your wealth only to the worthy and never to others. The water of the sea received by the clouds is always sweet.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn’t give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn’t seem right.

The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

I mean, Hawaii is beautiful, but the world is full of beautiful places.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays.

I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid.

I was the first woman to burn my bra – it took the fire department four days to put it out.

We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, ‚Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours.‘ He said, ‚Yes, but not in a row.‘

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, ‚Yes,‘ you know he is a crook.

‚O sleep, O gentle sleep,‘ I thought gratefully, ‚Nature’s soft nurse!‘

Contrary to reports, this boy is not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle… and not just in the sense of money, by the way; the Beatles are untouchable – those billionaire reports are a joke.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

Custom is our nature. What are our natural principles but principles of custom?

I was training to be an electrician. I suppose I got wired the wrong way round somewhere along the line.

Stand-up is hard.

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In ‚The Colour of Magic‘ most of the city is set alight. It’s a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams’s ‚The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.‘

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they’d never reach a conclusion.

Gardening is not a rational act.