Good Omens Quotes

People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it. ~ Terry Pratchett

She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close. ~ Terry Pratchett

Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your own home. ~ Terry Pratchett

It is not a good omen to meet a lot of cats when one sets out on a journey, so the Lieutenant spat three times for each cat, as his mother had taught him to do ... ~ Selma Lagerlof

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. ~ Terry Pratchett

When I agreed to give this address, I started trying to think what the best advice I'd been given over the years was.

And it came from Stephen King twenty years ago, at the height of the success of Sandman. I was writing a comic that people loved and were taking seriously. King had like Sandman and my novel with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, and he saw a madness, the long signing lines, all that, and his advice was this:

"This is really great. You should enjoy it."

And I didn't. Best advice I got that I ignored. Instead I worried about it. I worried about the next deadline, the next idea, the next story. There wasn't a moment for the next fourteen or fifteen years that I wasn't writing something in my head, or wondering about it. And I didn't stop and look around and go, This is really fun. I wish I'd enjoyed it more. It's been an amazing ride. But there were parts of the ride I missed, because I was too worried about things going wrong, about what came next, to enjoy the bit I was on.

That was the hardest lesson for me, I think: to let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places. ~ Neil Gaiman

One of the nice things about time, Crowley always said, was that it was steadily taking him further away from the fourteenth century. ~ Jill Thompson

One of the highlights of the first Good Omens tour was Neil and I walking through New York singing Shoehorn with Teeth. Well, we'd had a good breakfast. And you don't get mugged, either. ~ Terry Pratchett

Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide. ~ 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

There's one thing you can say for air pollution, you get utterly amazing sunrises. ~ Terry Pratchett

It is possibly worth mentioning at this point that Mr. Young thought that paparazzi was a kind of Italian linoleum. ~ Terry Pratchett

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. ~ Terry Pratchett

Some police forces would believe anything. Not the Metropolitan police, though. The Met was the hardest, most cynically pragmatic, most stubbornly down-to-earth police force in Britain. It would take a lot to faze a copper from the Met. It would take, for example, a huge, battered car that was nothing more nor less than a fireball, a blazing, roaring, twisted metal lemon from Hell, driven by a grinning lunatic in sunglasses, sitting amid the flames, trailing thick black smoke, coming straight at them through the lashing rain and wind at eighty miles an hour.
That would do it every time. ~ Terry Pratchett

She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that talked about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itsel ~ Terry Pratchett

But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat. ~ Terry Pratchett

I am creation's shadow. You cannot destroy me. That would destroy the world. ~ Terry Pratchett

Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men. ~ Neil Gaiman

Newton Pulsifer had never...as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. 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. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. ....

Then he'd tried believing in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he'd innocently started reading new books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist.

To Newt's straightforward mind this was intolerable. ~ Neil Gaiman

The world was bright and strange and he was in the middle of it. ~ Neil Gaiman

The Kappamaki, a whaling research ship, was currently researching the question: How many whales can you catch in one week? ~ Terry Pratchett

I bet you don't have to be Spanish to be the Spanish Inquisition," said Adam. "I bet it's like Scottish eggs or American hamburgers. It just has to look Spanish. We've just got to make it look Spanish. Then everyone would know it's the Spanish Inquisition. ~ Terry Pratchett

Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you. ~ Terry Pratchett

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

Sister Mary was a nurse and nurses, whatever their creed, are primarily nurses, which had a lot to do with wearing your watch upside down, keeping calm in emergencies, and dying for a cup of tea. ~ Terry Pratchett

Bees are a good omen to Kings, for they signify an obsequious people. ~ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

i started trying to think what the best advice
i'd been given over the years was.
and it came from
stephen king
twenty years ago, at the height of the success of
sandman.
i was writing a comic that people loved and were taking
seriously. king liked sandman and my novel with terry pratchett, good omens, and he saw the madness, the
long singing lines, all that, and his advice was this:

'this is really great. you should enjoy it.'

and i didn't.

best advice i got that i ignored. instead i
worried about it. i worried about the next deadline,
the next idea, the next story. there wasn't a
moment for the next fourteen or fifteen years that
i wasn't writing something in my head, or wondering
about it. and i didn't stop and look around and go,
this is really fun. ~ Neil Gaiman

Good Omens was written by two people who at the time were not at all well known except by the people who already knew them. They weren't even certain it would sell. ~ Terry Pratchett

Adam looked at Them. They were his kind of people, too.
You just had to decide who your friends really were. ~ Terry Pratchett

All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums. ~ Terry Pratchett

She managed to come up with the kind of predictions that you can only understand after the thing has happened," said Anathema. "Like 'Do Notte Buye Betamacks.' That was a prediction for 1972. ~ Terry Pratchett

Today, for example, one can imagine a good book being written by a Catholic, a Communist, a Fascist, a pacifist, an anarchist, perhaps by an old-style Liberal or an ordinary Conservative: one cannot imagine a good book being written by a spiritualist, a Buchmanite or a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The views that a writer holds must be compatible with sanity, in the medical sense, and with the power of continuous thought: beyond that what we ask of him is talent, which is probably another name for conviction. ~ George Orwell

Many use laughter to hide their tears and anger to hide their fear
As you walk through life use your smile to show you your heart full of good cheer ~ Timothy Pina

You will never please everyone. Ever. And that's a good thing. It's a great thing. It's an amazing thing. It's a freeing thing. It's everything. This realization feels like a big, relaxing exhale. ~ Jodi Chapman

Meditate well so you can be a good instrument of eternity. You could have a mediocre meditation today, but you're not going to. Today you might run into someone who you might talk to about the dharma. ~ Frederick Lenz

Any time and any place can be used to study: his room, a garden, is table, his bed; when alone or in company; morning and evening. His chief study will be Philosophy, that Former of good judgement and character who is privileged to be concerned with everything. ~ Michel De Montaigne

The good news and the bad news are the same: No one cares! ~ Dave Horowitz

Dude, I throw a stick. Come on. I get paid a pretty good salary to throw a stick. ~ Breaux Greer

Music is a very good way of thinking about time. A note only moves you because you remember the one before, and you're waiting for the next ... Each one only means something wrapped in a bit of the past and the future. ~ Francois Lelord

Are we called to be like Noah? Yes. Are we called to be like the Good Samaritan? Yes. But not simply because they are positive examples to inspire us to righteousness. These stories point us to Christ. ~ Jen Wilkin

What do I care if you are good? Be beautiful! and be sad! ~ Charles Baudelaire

All good tales are true tales, at least for those who read them, which is all that counts. ~ Javier Cercas

While genes are pivotal in establishing some aspects of emotionality, experience plays a central role in turning genes on and off. DNA is not the heart's destiny; the genetic lottery may determine the cards in your deck, but experience deals the hand you can play. Scientists have proven, for example, that good mothering can override a disadvantageous temperament.(152) ~ Thomas Lewis

Giving her plenty of time to adjust, he wrapped the long claws of one foot around her with such precision he didn't cause so much as a scratch or pinch. When he tilted his foot, she found she had quite a comfortable hollow in which to sit. He lifted her up so that he could look at her. "All right?" "I'm feeling a little Fay Wray here, but otherwise it's great," she told him. "You know, if you weren't a multibillionaire, you could make a good living as an elevator. ~ Thea Harrison

If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. But
after all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing-I wanted a
mountain high! A hill wasn't enough. ~ V.C. Andrews

Can any thing, my good Sir, be more painful to a friendly mind than a necessity of communicating disagreeable intelligence? Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to determine, whether the relater or the receiver of evil tidings is most to be pitied. ~ Fanny Burney

I think back to the day I drove Michelle and a newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 13 years ago-crawling along, miles under the speed limit, feeling the weight of my daughter's future resting in my hands. I think about the pledge I made to her that day: that I would give her what I never had-that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father. I knew that day that my own life wouldn't count for much unless she had every opportunity in hers. ~ Barack Obama

i get why manufacturers play to pink- it makes good business sense. A marketing executive i spoke with at LeapFrog which is based in Emeryville, California, told me that her company even had a name for it> the pink factor.
If you make a pink baseball bat, parents will buy one for their daughter, she explained. then if they subsequently have a son, they'll have to buy a second bat in a different color. Or, if they have a boy first and then a daughter, they'll want to buy a pink one for their precious little girl. Either way, you double the sales. ~ Peggy Orenstein

should do this, you should do that. The list is endless: education, socializing, hobbies. Growing up we bounce from should to should, building up a good stock of interests. But then we get married and, at least for women, all those interests are supposed to collapse to nothing when you become a mother? Yours certainly won't, so why should I have to make that choice? ~ Laura Matson Hahn

I guess I don't have the cut-throat ambition that some other actresses have. I don't know how good that is for my career, but I know how good that is for me as a person. And to me, that's much more important. ~ Summer Phoenix

Make me feel good in the moontime. ~ James Joyce

There are no good guys or bad guys. Not really ~ Samantha Hunt

If
we continue to teach about tolerance and intolerance
instead
of good and evil, we will end up with tolerance of
evil. ~ Dennis Prager

She worked her toes into the sand, feeling the tiny delicious pain of the friction of tiny chips of silicon against the tender flesh between her toes. That's life. It hurts, it's dirty, and it feels very, very good. ~ Orson Scott Card

Solitude is only a good idea if you have the right people along to share it. ~ Jack McDevitt

At the end of each day, write down three things from the day you feel grateful for, and you will attract positive things into your life. Decide today that you are going to get rid of negativity in your life and let positive thoughts take root. Get your brain into a good, happy, grateful and positive mindset daily. ~ Farshad Asl

I think this ... "perfectionist gene" that too many young women have holds them back, and instead they should be really aiming for "good enough." You don't have to be perfect. Most men never think like that. They're just trying to figure out what's the opening and how they can seize it. They're not thinking about, Oh my gosh, I'm not perfect, my hair's not perfect today, I wore the wrong shoes. No. ~ Hillary Clinton

I did a lot of things that I regretted and I certainly paid for my mistakes. You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right, by other people as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. ~ Mark Wahlberg

You don't need a medal to do what's right. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I haven't been able to slam-dunk the basketball for the past five years. Or, for the thirty-eight years before that, either. ~ Dave Barry

As an adult, I know about life and death. I know that good people can die too soon and bad ones can live too long. I know that life's not fair, and you take the bitter with the sweet and balance it all as best you can. ~ Elsie Hillman-Gordon

Eddie Nelligan."
"Jennifer Chen. And these are my legs, since you seem so interested. Left and right."
"Hi, it's good to meet you, all three of you. ~ A.J. Butcher

Thabit ibn Qurra (AD 836-901, and also born in Harran), would have had little patience with loaded terms like "star idolatry" which seek to place the "paganism" of the Sabians on a lower level than the deadly, and often bigoted, narrow-minded and unscientific clerical monotheism of religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Thabit was well aware that, underlying the ancient Sabian practices misunderstood by these young religions as "star idolatry," were indeed exact sciences of great benefit to mankind, and thus he wrote: 'Who else have civilized the world, and built the cities, if not the nobles and kings of Paganism? Who else have set in order the harbors and rivers? And who else have taught the hidden wisdom? To whom else has the Deity revealed itself, given oracles, and told about the future, if not the famous men among the Pagans? The Pagans have made known all this. They have discovered the art of healing the soul; they have also made known the art of healing the body. They have filled the earth with settled forms of government, and with wisdom, which is the highest good. Without Paganism the world would be empty and miserable. ~ Graham Hancock

Good luck to you both. Please take care of each other, you mean a lot to me. And don't forget to write. ~ John John

A social order bent on producing wealth as an end in itself cannot avoid the creation of a people whose souls are superficial and whose daily life is captured by sentimentalities. They will ask questions like "why does a good God let bad things happen to good people " such people cannot imagine that a people once existed who produced and sang the psalms. If we learn to say "God " we will do so with the prayer "My God my God why have you forsaken me? ~ Stanley Hauerwas

It's a good thing that it is getting simpler to register a company in China, it is good that the exchange rate of our currency is getting more flexible and that it's getting easier for Chinese businesspeople to travel. All of this opens up our economy. ~ Zhang Xin

She lifted the book to her nose. A book had a smell more soothing than any of Mrs. Hawkins's herbs. There was nothing like a good story to take her out of a world she didn't much like. ~ Cindy Thomson

You can be a decent critic if you know about food, but to be a really good one, you need to know about life. ~ Ruth Reichl

I graduated high school in 1989, and there was no alternative rock radio, and there wasn't really good college radio you could get on a car stereo. Once you get a car at that age, you're spending all the time you can away from home, sometimes just driving around aimlessly. Listening, or not even listening, but subconsciously soaking up this classic rock barrage. ~ Craig Finn

Riker tells Data to just get on with it already, so Data says Ferengi are like Yankee traders from 18th-century America. This indicates that, in the 24th century, the traditional practice of using 600-year-old comparisons is still in vogue, like when you're stuck in traffic on the freeway, and say, Man, this is just like Vasco de Gama trying to go around the Cape of Good Hope! ~ Wil Wheaton

I need you, Desari. I was empty without you. And that kind of emptiness eats away at you, consumes you until your soul is dark and ugly and all that matters is sating your hunger. But nothing fills the void.Nothing. Year after year you endure the emptiness until life itself is a curse hardly to be borne. And all the while the darkness, the beast in you whispers, an insidious whisper promising power from the kill,promises that wear away your belief in God,in all the things that are right and true and good.The monster inside you,so black and hungry for life, grows and grows until it has consumed everything you ever were. That is the curse born by Carpathian males, Desari. ~ Christine Feehan

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. ~ Ayn Rand

I think she adored this version of me, whose difficulties were, for all intents and purposes, childlike. She was a good mother for young children. ~ Carmen Maria Machado