Education Quote by Terry Prachett

Pratchett takes a neat little semantic distinction - education as a verb, not a trophy - and then spikes it with a cheeseburger. The joke lands because it refuses the reverent, cathedral tone that usually surrounds schooling. By insisting that "educational" names a process rather than an object, he’s already nudging us away from credentials-as-commodities and toward learning as lived, messy practice. Then he detonates the polite point with an insult so domestic and greasy it feels almost unfair: some teachers, he implies, were less nourishing than fast food and no more memorable.

That’s classic Pratchett: wit as a scalpel. The cheeseburger isn’t just a punchline; it’s a unit of cultural measurement. Fast food is standardized, predictable, easy to consume, and designed for convenience over depth. So when he says a teacher could be replaced by one, he’s not merely calling them dumb. He’s indicting an educational setup that can devolve into pre-packaged delivery, where the adult at the front of the room is interchangeable with any quick hit of calories. The subtext is that education fails when it becomes mechanical - when the system values compliance, curriculum coverage, or authority more than curiosity.

Coming from an author who built whole worlds out of skeptical humanism, the line also deflates institutional grandeur. It’s a reminder that learning can be nourishing, but only when the people tasked with it are more than placeholders. Otherwise, you might as well eat.