Going Postal Quotes

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a hero.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“I commend my soul to any god that can find it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“People flock in, nevertheless, in search of answers to those questions only librarians are considered to be able to answer, such as "Is this the laundry?" "How do you spell surreptitious?" and, on a regular basis, "Do you have a book I remember reading once? It had a red cover and it turned out they were twins.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Sometimes the truth is arrived at by adding all the little lies together and deducting them from the totality of what is known.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Speak softly and employ a huge man with a crowbar.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you're going to behave, I shan't bring you again.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“There is always a choice."
"You mean I could choose certain death?"
"A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Do you understand what I'm saying?"
shouted Moist. "You can't just go around killing people!"
"Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm.
"What?" snapped Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?"
"I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three Eight People," said the golem calmly.
"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"
"No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Mr Horsefry was a youngish man, not simply running to fat but vaulting, leaping and diving towards obesity. He had acquired at thirty an impressive selection of chins, and now they wobbled with angry pride.*

* It is wrong to judge by appearances. Despite his expression, which was that of a piglet having a bright idea, and his mode of speech, which might put you in mind of a small, breathless, neurotic but ridiculously expensive dog, Mr Horsefry might well have been a kind, generous and pious man. In the same way, the man climbing out of your window in a stripy jumper, a mask and a great hurry might merely be lost on the way to a fancy-dress party, and the man in the wig and robes at the focus of the courtroom might only be a transvestite who wandered in out of the rain. Snap judgements can be so unfair.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“You know how to pray, don’t you? Just put your hands together and hope.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“If he'd been a hero, he would have taken the opportunity to say, "That's what I call sorted!" Since he wasn't a hero, he threw up.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“See a pin and pick it up, and, all day long, you'll have a pin.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever - provided, naturally, that you don't go and look. This is known as finance.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“If you kept changing the way people saw the world, you ended up changing the way you saw yourself.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“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.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man's mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that, in the morning, it will be in a body that is going to be hanged.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“ALWAYS REMEMBER that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“You did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Never promise to do the possible. Anyone could do the possible. You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible was possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible. And if you failed, well, it had been impossible.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“It was also a room full of books and made of books. There was no actual furniture; this is to say, the desk and chairs were shaped out of books. It looked as though many of them were frequently referred to, because they lay open with other books used as bookmarks.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“In defiance of Miss Maccalariat I'd like to commit hanky-panky with you, Miss Adora Belle Dearheart... well, certainly hanky, and possibly panky when we get to know one another better.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“Soon to come in licorice, orange, cinnamon, and banana, but not strawberry, because I hate strawberries.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“I wonder if it's like this for mountain climbers, he thought. You climb bigger and bigger mountains and you know that one day one of them is going to be just that bit too steep. But you go on doing it, because it’s so-o good when you breathe the air up there. And you know you'll die falling.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“But…but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. Its table d´hôte or nothing, otherwise…well, it would be silly.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal