The Last Continent Quotes

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“But we're a university! We have to have a library!" said Ridcully. "It adds tone. What sort of people would we be if we didn't go into the library?"

"Students," said Senior Wrangler morosely.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“I'm trying to remember how you tell the time by looking at the sun." -"I should leave it for a while, it's too bright to see the numbers at the moment.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“I don't think I've drunk enough beer to understand that.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“...the proliferation of luminous fungi or iridescent crystals in deep caves where the torchlessly improvident hero needs to see is one of the most obvious intrusions of narrative causality into the physical universe.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe,' would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss is about. This made signs rather a waste of time, but at least it meant that when you handed what was left of the wizard to his grieving relatives you could say, as they grasped the jar, 'We told him not to.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?” “Why?” “It saves time.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Creators aren't gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It's men that make gods. This explains a lot.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Once upon a time the plural of 'wizard' was 'war'.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Cake is not the issue here.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Now look," snapped the Dean, "we've searched everywhere for a decent library on this island. There simply isn't one! It's ridiculous. How is anyone supposed to get anything done?”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“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.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“We may even find out why the duck-billed platypus.*

*Not why is it anything. Just why it is.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain caliber.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Unseen University was much bigger on the inside. Thousands of years as the leading establishment of practical magic in a world where dimensions were largely a matter of chance in any case had left it bulging in places where it shouldn't have places. There were rooms containing rooms which, if you entered them, turned out to contain the room you'd started with, which can be a problem if you are in a conga line.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Interesting thing, these fellows never seem to get the idea of perspective-'
The Bursar thought, or received the thought: that's because perspective is a lie. If I know a pond is round then why should I draw it oval? I will draw it round because round is true. Why should my brush lie to you just because my eye lies to me?”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“The thing about late-night cookery was that it made sense at the time. It always had some logic behind it. It just wasn’t the kind of logic you’d use around midday.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Ponder Stibbons was one of those unfortunate people cursed with the belief that if only he found out enough things about the universe it would all, somehow, make sense.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“To be frank, I find religion rather offensive.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“I THINK PERHAPS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. PEOPLE’S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE PROCESS IS CALLED “LIVING.” WOULD YOU LIKE A PRAWN?”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“He hated weapons, and not just because they'd so often been aimed at him. You got into more trouble if you had a weapon. People shot you instantly if they thought you were going to shoot them. But if you were unarmed, they often stopped to talk. Admittedly, they tended to say things like, "You'll never guess what we're going to do to you, pal," but that took time. And Rincewind could do a lot with a few more seconds. He could use them to live longer in.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“... and all those frogs going 'Rabbit, rabbit'..."
"I think, sir, that it was 'Ribbit, ribbit'..."
"So, what goes 'Rabbit, rabbit'?"
"Rabbits, I think. All the time...”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“It is very easy to get ridiculously confused about the tenses of time travel, but most things can be resolved by a sufficiently large ego.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Haven’t you noticed that by running away you end up in more trouble?” “Yes, but, you see, you can run away from that, too,” said Rincewind. “That’s the beauty of the system. Dead is only for once, but running away is for ever.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?’ ‘Why?’ ‘It saves time.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“Los historiadores han observado que es en las épocas de abundancia cuando se siente el deseo de ir a la guerra. En tiempos de hambruna, la gente está demasiado ocupada intentando encontrar algo que comer. Cuando sólo tienen lo justo para ir tirando, las personas tienden a ser afables y educadas. Pero cuando se les sirve un banquete, enseguida deciden que ha llegado el momento de discutir quién se sienta dónde.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“It felt like those treasured moments in bed when you’re just awake enough to know that you’re still nicely asleep.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“To tell you the truth, I'm something of an atheist.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

“He’d decided to keep a journal in the hope that this might help. He looked at the recent entries. Probably Tuesday: hot, flies. Dinner: honey ants. Attacked by honey ants. Fell into waterhole. Wednesday, with any luck: hot, flies. Dinner: either bush raisins or kangaroo droppings. Chased by hunters, don’t know why. Fell into waterhole. Thursday (could be): hot, flies. Dinner: blue-tongued lizard. Savaged by blue-tongued lizard. Chased by different hunters. Fell off cliff, bounced into tree, pissed on by small grey incontinent teddy bear, landed in a waterhole. Friday: hot, flies. Dinner: some kind of roots which tasted like sick. This saved time. Saturday: hotter than yesterday, extra flies. V. thirsty. Sunday: hot. Delirious with thirst and flies. Nothing but nothing as far as the eye can see, with bushes in it. Decided to die, collapsed, fell down sand dune into waterhole.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent