Discworld: From Small Gods and Good Omens to Mort – best quotes from Terry Pratchett's fantasy novels

Pratchett leaves behind him a fantastical world of more than 70 novels

Discworld author Terry Pratchett died aged 66 on Thursday 12 March 2015 (Getty Images)

Sir Terry Pratchett has died aged 66 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

The much-loved fantasy writer leaves behind him a vivid legacy of more than 70 books that sold over 85 million copies in his lifetime.

Best known for his ever-popular Discworld series, Pratchett's passion for the written word proved almost uncontainable.

Here’s our pick of some of the most memorable lines from his novels:

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” – Diggers

“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.” – Moving Pictures

“She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don’t apply to you.” – Equal Rites

“Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.” – The Truth

“If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star, you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.” – The Wee Free Men

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.” – Small Gods

“Here’s some advice boy. Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. Thats why they’re called revolutions.” - Night Watch

“There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.” – A Hat Full of Sky

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” – Reaper Man

“‘I meant,’ said Ipslore bitterly, ‘What is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?” Death thought about it. Cats, he said eventually. Cats are nice.” – Sourcery

Cover art for Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

“Insanity is catching.” – Making Money

“If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story.” – The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.” – I Shall Wear Midnight

“The enemy isn’t men, or women, it’s bloody stupid people and no-one has the right to be stupid.” – Monstrous Regiment

“People couldn’t become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.” - Good Omens

“People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it.” - Mort

“If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn’t as cynical as real life.” – Guards! Guards!

“Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out.” –The Light Fantastic

Pratchett died peacefully at home surrounded by his family with his cat sleeping on his bed, a statement from his publisher confirmed this afternoon.

“The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds,” a message on his Facebook page read. “Rest in peace Sir Terry Pratchett.”