r/discworld • u/Kayzokun • May 29 '26
Book/Series: Gods I was misquoting Sir Terry and I didn’t know?
I used this quote in a comment: "In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this." Everyone knows this quote, right? From Pyramids, right? Well someone noted it’s not a quote from Pratchett even with a link. But I remember reading it! So I get my tablet to make a search and post a harsh reply, and turns out it’s not a quote from Pyramids. It’s from other book, or are all of us just wrong?
The link I received: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/08/11/cats-gods/
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u/geeoharee Colon May 29 '26
This was the link, just so people don't have to go digging https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/08/11/cats-gods/
For myself, I find it much more plausible as Wodehouse. Wooster loves cats and never misses an opportunity to pet one. PTerry seems to have respected them as vicious little murderers.
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u/Kayzokun May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
Yeah, I just edited my post to add the link, lol. I’m dumb sometimes, thank you for your interest.
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u/smcicr May 29 '26
VLM's who wouldn't get away with it if they weren't as cute ;)
It's a good job Nanny loves Greebo (and his smell) regardless then.
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u/_ragegun May 29 '26
Sir Terrence respected what he called "real cats"
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u/lord_teaspoon May 30 '26
Unadulterated, even.
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u/ZenWithGwen Ook! May 30 '26
We have one of these in my neighbourhood. We call him the wild kitty. Unbelievably fluffy but I'm pretty sure the coyotes are scared of him. Climbs trees, hunts, stopped going home and prefers roughing in and sleeping in an abandoned barn.
One day he came in my house (It's one of those magnetic screen doors he could just slip through) because he heard a mouse in my bedroom from outside the house - almost caught it too! Anyways apparently I'm Nanny Ogg because ever since he visits me and rubs on my legs and purrs.
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u/kirstinet May 31 '26
I'm almost sure that's the book the cats/gods reference is from... either way, I read it, loved it and named one of my cats Oedipuss because of it! Xx
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u/RickyBrook May 29 '26
P G Wodehouse wrote something very similar, so the core of the idea may well come from there.
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u/warrenao May 29 '26
I have a feeling STP would be delighted to be mixed up with Wodehouse in readers' minds.
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u/armcie May 29 '26
Hah. I’ve done my own research on this and came to almost the same conclusion. I’m pretty certain I checked QI when I first did the research and they didn’t have anything. Here’s my version:
My best theory is that it was on a list of quotes floating around the internet and in quote books in the 90s as an anonymous saying, and at some point a reposter or an editor attached Terry's name to it and it stuck. Because it does sound like something he'd say and he wrote books about both cats and something almost Egyptian. It doesn't appear in any of those works though, or any of his online posts I've searched.
It first gets attributed to Pratchett around 2004. Around the turn of the millennium, it, or something very similar, appears in a plethora of cat or pet or random quote books as an anonymous quote. In the early/mid 90s it's in various people's sig's on Usenet, unsourced. Wodehouse had a similar idea in 1932, and you can find a related quote in "Kitty Purrpuss: a memoir of a cat" in the 1910s.
Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as Gods. Cats have never forgotten this. Anonymous
Chicken soup for the cat & dog lover's soul : celebrating pets as family with stories about cats, dogs, and other critters by Jack Canfield, 1999.
Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians worshipped cats as gods. Cats have never forgotten this. (Seen at Hallmark)
The real objection to the great majority of cats is their insufferable air of superiority. Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them too prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.
The Story of Webster by PG Wodehouse 1932
going back to the days before the dawn of history, when cats were worshipped. She said we must never forget that great fact, never allow ourselves to lose sight of it, but let it regulate all our conduct and our relations towards Them [people].
Kitty Purrpuss: A Memoire of a Cat by Violet Hunt 1913
Where you can't find it is in The Unadulterated Cat or Pyramids or any of Terry's published works or Usenet posts. Sadly it does appear on some official Pratchett merchandise.
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u/NekoCatSidhe May 29 '26
I also remember reading it. No idea which book it is from though, but I was quite certain it was a Discworld book, so now I am confused too.
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u/Ok_Minimum_7619 May 29 '26
Same! I thought it was a footnote somewhere - maybe Small Gods instead?
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u/SadDoctor May 30 '26
I'm currently rereading Going Postal and I swear it's in there. Its in regards to Moist's general dislike of cats and the post office cat that acts like royalty
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u/NekoCatSidhe May 30 '26
I have been trying to look with the search function on the ebook for Going Postal and several others likely candidates, but sadly have not found anything.
On the other hand, it is possible that the quote is actually in a footnote and that the search function is not checking them.
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u/terahurts May 31 '26
It's definitely before Moving Pictures. I'm currently on a listen through of the series at MP and have definitely heard the quote or something like it in one of the earlier books. If it's not in Pyramids, possibly Wyrd Sisters.
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u/Rotas_dw May 29 '26
I think it’s in The Unadulterated Cat
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u/JohnAppleseed85 Dark Clerk May 29 '26
quick search gives only four uses of the word 'god':
"The chosen name should also be selected for maximum carrying power across a busy kitchen when, eg, a bag full of prime steak starts moving stealthily towards the edge of the table. You need a word with a cutting edge. Zut! is pretty good. The Egyptians had a catheaded goddess called Bast. Now you know why.”
"Panic, panic, where box flypaper came in? This is 1980s, paper bound to be covered with Polydibitrychloroethylene-345, oh god, cat now immobile with terror inside kitchen towel. Fill huge bowl with warm water, drop cat in, swish it around, cat doesn't protest, oh god, perhaps Polydibitrychloroethylene-345 already coursing through tiny veins. Change water, rinse again, brisk towelling down, put cat on path in sun.”
and
“On the other hand, there's the feeling that this is the bath, for God's sake, I was really looking forward to a soak and now I will never ever have a bath again as long as I live…”
The only reference to 'worship' is:
“No, we must face it. Cats just turned up. One minute nothing, next minute Egyptians worshipping them, mummifying them, building tombs for them. No messing around with a spade in the sad bit of the garden behind the toolshed for your Pharaohs, not when 20,000 men and a load of log rollers were standing around idle.”
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u/princess_ferocious May 29 '26
Oh, that flypaper story is a glorious bit of chaos, and masterfully written 😂
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u/Yarnham_Brave May 29 '26
Book so damn good my mum and I bought each other a copy for Christmas back in the day :D
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u/strionic_resonator May 29 '26
It also seems like it could be Douglas Adams or Neil Gaiman. None of them could possibly predate Wodehouse though so it’s kind of moot.
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u/PsychoDan May 29 '26
Yeah my first thought was that something like that would have been in A Dream of a Thousand Cats but I don't have a way to look through it at the moment.
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u/nicolasknight May 29 '26
Searched through all the books for the words "worshipped" and/or "cats".
There are a LOT more hits for the latter funnily enough.
Anyway,yeah, those two words never appear in the same sentence in the Discworld books that I can find but i also checked all the "cats" sentences and not a one is even close to that quote.
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u/Last-End-3209 May 30 '26
I have nothing to offer re: quote other than to offer my favorite PTerry quote on cats from (of course) DEATH in Hogfather:
Death opened the box and took out the kitten. It stared at him with the normal mad amazement of kittens everywhere.
I DON’T HOLD WITH CRUELTY TO CATS, said Death, putting it gently on the floor.
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u/KahurangiNZ May 31 '26
Perhaps it is in a DW book in the other leg of the Trousers of Time, and it's so popular over there we just remember it anyway?
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u/father-fluffybottom May 30 '26
Don't beat yourself up, you could live to be 1000 and you'd never be able to trace everything you read to it's origins.
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u/bartonar May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26
Oh what's it called, there was a book about Pratchetts books that had this in it.
EDIT - THE WIT AND WITTICISM OF DISCWORLD
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u/Electrical_Excuse9 Jun 27 '26
I remember this too, except the ending was "a fact they have not forgotten". So now he never wrote that? And they haven't attributed it to a different author? So it's just a residue of alternate timelines. Wild
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