Life & Wisdom Quote by Terry Prachett

Self-deprecation is Pratchett's favorite crowbar: it pries open the pomp around authorship and lets the air out with a clean, comic hiss. "I wouldn't pay more than a couple of quid to see me" isn’t just a gag about ticket prices; it’s a refusal of the modern cult of the writer-as-celebrity. He’s puncturing the idea that a person who makes worlds on the page must, by extension, be a spectacle in the flesh. And he does it in the most Pratchett way possible: by making himself the target, then twisting the knife with "and I’m me" - a line that’s simultaneously boast and dismissal, confidence and contempt for the very notion of "access."

The phrasing matters. "Couple of quid" is pointedly ordinary, pub-level currency; it grounds the joke in British common sense and class-coded skepticism about paying for airs. It also signals solidarity with the reader: we’re on the same side against inflated prices and inflated egos. The repetition of "me" works like a drumbeat of absurdity, emphasizing the mismatch between the private self and the public product.

Contextually, Pratchett spent decades as a wildly popular writer who remained suspicious of reverence. He knew fandom could slide into worship and that literary culture loves to monetize intimacy. This line draws a boundary while sounding like an invitation, turning humility into a kind of moral stance: the work is worth your money; the man is just a man.