Quotes From "Good Omens: The Nice And Accurate Prophecies Of Agnes Nutter Witch" By Terry Pratchett

It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people. Neil Gaiman

Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours - he was incredibly good at it. Terry Pratchett

25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying 'Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?'26 And the Angel said, 'I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.'27 And the Lord did not ask him again. Neil Gaiman

He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it was an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did. What he did was put the fear of God into them. More precisely, the fear of Crowley. In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didn't look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. "Say goodbye to your friend, " he'd say to them. "He just couldn't cut it. . " Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat. The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified. Neil Gaiman

I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird-"" What little bird?" said Aziraphale suspiciously." This little bird I'm talking about. And every thousand years-"" The same bird every thousand years?" Crowley hesitated. "Yeah, " he said." Bloody ancient bird, then."" Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies-""-limps-""-flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak-"" Hold on. You can't do that. Between here and the end of the universe there's loads of-" The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. "Loads of buggerall, dear boy."" But it gets there anyway, " Crowley persevered." How?"" It doesn't matter! "" It could use a space ship, " said the angel. Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah, " he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird-"" Only it is the end of the universe we're talking about, " said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to-" He hesitated. "What havethey got to do?"" Sharpen its beak on the mountain, " said Crowley. "And then it flies back-""-in the space ship-"" And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again, " said Crowley quickly. There was a moment of drunken silence." Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak, " mused Aziraphale."Listen, " said Crowley urgently, "the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then-" Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knew he was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds' beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly."-then you still won't have finished watching The Sound of Music."Aziraphale froze." And you'll enjoy it, " Crowley said relentlessly. "You really will."" My dear boy-"" You won't have a choice."" Listen-"" Heaven has no taste."" Now-"" And not one single sushi restaurant." A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face. Neil Gaiman

Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking towards Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty To Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping but secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People travelled with them. Neil Gaiman

He couldn’t see why people made such a fuss about people eating their silly old fruit anyway, but life would be a lot less fun if they didn’t. And there was never an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it. Neil Gaiman

Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisements said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighborhood, 4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expensive box when you opened it, this was expressly, absolutely, implicitly and in no event the fault or responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider himself lucky to be allowed to give his money to the manufacturer, and that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchaser's own property would result in the attentions of serious men with menacing briefcases and very thin watches. Crowley had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: 'Learn, guys.. Neil Gaiman

There are some dogs which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of man-made evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf. These dogs advance deliberately, purposefully, the wilderness made flesh, their teeth yellow, their breath a-stink, while in the distance their owners witter, "He's an old soppy really, just poke him if he's a nuisance, " and in the green of their eyes the red campfires of the Pleistocene gleam and flicker. Neil Gaiman

God does not play games with His loyal servants", said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice." Whoopee", said Crowley. Terry Pratchett

It was then that Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing' people's doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money. Terry Pratchett

I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset cos' they act like people", said Adam severely. "Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. Terry Pratchett

Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing. Neil Gaiman

I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset 'cos they act like people. Terry Pratchett

There was the kind of silence there might have been on the day before Creation. Adam stood smiling at the two of them, a small figure perfectly poised exactly between Heaven and Hell. Crowley grabbed Aziraphale's arm. "You know what happened?" he hissed excitedly. "He was left alone! He grew up human! He's not Evil Incarnate or Good Incarnate, he's just...a human incarnate- Neil Gaiman

You won't enjoy it, " sighed Crowley. "It's been in the car for more than a fortnight." A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow. Aziraphale's brow furrowed. "I don't recognize this, " he said. "What is it?" "It's Tchaikovsky's 'Another One Bites the Dust', " said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough. To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd's "We Are the Champions" and Beethoven's "I Want To Break Free." Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams's "Fat-Bottomed Girls. Terry Pratchett

Farther down the riverbank sat a young man dressed all in white. He was the only person in sight. His hair was white, his skin chalk pale, and he sat and stared up and down the river, as if he were admiring the view. He looked like how Victorian Romantic poets looked just before the consumption and drug abuse really started to cut it." --Good Omens pg.191-192 Terry Pratchett

Loyalty was a great thing, but no lieutenants should be forced to choose between their leader and a circus with elephants. Neil Gaiman

You trust him?" he said. "No, " said Hastur. "Right, " said Ligur. It's be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another. Terry Pratchett

I don't see why it matters what is written. Not when it's about people. It can always be crossed out. Neil Gaiman

Hell wasn't a major reservoir of evil, any more then Heaven, in Crowley's opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind. Terry Pratchett

Why are we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that. Neil Gaiman

Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn't see why anyone else should. Terry Pratchett

If you took the world away and just left the elctricity, it would look like the most exquisite filigree ever made - a ball of twinkling silver lines with the occasional coruscating spike of a satellite beam. Even the dark areas would glow with radar and commercial radio waves. It could be the nervous system of a great beast. Terry Pratchett

D’yer see it? This finger, laddie, could send ye to meet yer Maker! ”Sgt. Deisenburger stared at the black and purple nail a few inches from his face. As an offensive weapon it rated quite highly, especially if it was ever used in the preparation of food. Terry Pratchett

And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. Neil Gaiman

She even tried the one which every romantic nerve in her body insisted should work, which consisted of theatrically giving up, sitting down, and letting her glance fall naturally on a patch of earth which, if she had been in any decent narrative, should have contained the book. It didn't. Terry Pratchett

Heaven has no taste."" Now-"" And not one single sushi restaurant." A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face. Terry Pratchett

I don’t reckon it’s allowed, going round setting fire to people, ” said Adam. “Otherwise people’d be doin’ it all the time.”“ It’s all right if you’re religious, ” said Brian reassuringly. “And it stops the witches from goin’ to Hell, so I expect they’d be quite grateful if they understood it properly. Terry Pratchett

Well, Hell was worse, of course, by definition. But Crowley remembered what Heaven was like, and it had quite a few things in common with Hell. You couldn’t get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell. Terry Pratchett

You couldn't get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell. Terry Pratchett

But you can't just leave it at that! " said Anathema, pushing forward. "Think of all things you could do! Good things."" Like what?" said Adam suspiciously." Well.. you could bring all the whales back, to start with." He put his head on one side. "An' that'd stop people killing them?" She hesitated. It would have been nice to say yes." An' if people do start killing 'em, what would you ask me to do about 'em?" said Adam. "No. I reckon I'm getting the hang of this now. Once I start messing around like that, there'd be no stoppin' it. Seems to me, the only sensible thing is for people to know if they kill a whale, they've got a dead whale. Terry Pratchett

His parents called him Youngster. They did this in the subconcious hope that he might take the hint. Wensleydale gave the impression of having been born with a mental age of 47. Terry Pratchett

And then there were cats, thought Dog. He'd surprised the huge ginger cat from next door and had attempted to reduce it to cowering jelly by means of the usual glowing stare and deep-throated growl, which had always worked on the damned in the past. This time they had earned him a whack on the nose that had made his eyes water. Cats, Dog considered, were clearly a lot tougher than lost souls. He was looking forward to a further cat experiment, which he planned would consist of jumping around and yapping excitedly at it. It was a long shot, but it just might work. Terry Pratchett

Cats, Dog considered, were clearly a lot tougher than lost souls. Terry Pratchett

The English, by and large, being a crass and indolent race, were not as keen on burning women as other countries in Europe. Terry Pratchett

Even the pious Scots, locked throughout history in a long-drawn-out battle with their arch-enemies the Scots, managed a few burnings to while away the long winter evenings. Terry Pratchett

It might have interested Newt to know that, of the thirty-nine thousand women tested with the pin during the centuries of witch-hunting, twenty-nine thousand said “ouch, ” nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine didn’t feel anything because of the use of the aforesaid retractable pins, and one witch declared that it had miraculously cleared up the arthritis in her leg. Terry Pratchett

It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism. Neil Gaiman