Terry Pratchett Magic Quotations

It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works.

It's still magic even if you know how it's done.

Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

The senior wizard in a world of magic had the same prospects of long-term employment as a pogo stick tester in a minefield.

And that's what I don't like about magic, Captain. 'cos it's *magic*. You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic! That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic!

There are thousands of good reasons why magic doesn't rule the world. They're called Witches and Wizards.

A world like that, which exists only because the gods enjoy a joke, must be a place where magic can survive. And sex too, of course.

People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to a sticky end. All over the entire room, sometimes.

What is magic? There is the wizard's explanation... wizards talk about candles, circles, planets, stars, bananas, chants, runes and the importance of having at least four good meals every day.

This time it had been magic. And it didn't stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.

Ninety percent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.

This looks like a job for inadvisably applied magic if ever I saw one.

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.

The theater troubled her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn’t belong to her, one that wasn’t in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn’t belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn’t know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better.

That's what I don't like about magic. It does everything by magic.

Unseen University had never admitted women, muttering something about problems with the plumbing, but the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic they would probably be embarrassingly good at it…

That's one form of magic, of course." "What, just knowing things?" "Knowing things that other people don't know.

You can't kill me, I've got a magic... AAAARGH !

A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls.

Many an ancient lord's last words have been, 'You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh.'

The sun set, which is everyday magic...

Magicians and scientists are, on the face of it, poles apart. Certainly, a group of people who often dress strangely, live in a world of their own, speak a specialized language and frequently make statements that appear to be in flagrant breach of common sense have nothing in common with a group of people who often dress strangely, speak a specialized language, live in ... er ...

Too much magic could wrap time and space around itself, and that wasn't good news for the kind of person who had grown used to things like effects following things like causes.

Magic is just a way of saying 'I don't know.'

It's an old magical principle - it's even filtered down into RPG systems - that magic, while taking a lot of effort, can be 'stored' - in a staff, for example. No doubt a wizard spends a little time each day charging up his staff, although you go blind if you do it too much, of course.

Magic never dies. It merely fades away.

Perhaps the magic would last, perhaps it wouldn't. But then again, what does?