# Quote — Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

> Everything that exists, yearns to live. That's what the cycle of life is all about. That's the engine that drives the great biological pumps of evolution. Everything tries to inch its way up the tree, clawing or tentacling or sliming its way up to the next niche until it gets to the very top—which, on the whole, never seems to have been worth all that effort. (p. 81)

- Author: [Terry Pratchett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett.md)
- Book: [Reaper Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/reaper-man.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Reaper_Man#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/reaper-man/everything-that-exists

## More from this book

> In the village in the Ramtops where they understand what the Morris dance is all about, they dance it just once, at dawn, on the first day of spring. They don't dance it after that, all through the summer. After all, what would be the point? What use would it be?

p. 344 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/reaper-man/in-the-village.md)

> In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away—until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence. (pp. 316-317)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/reaper-man/in-the-ramtop.md)

> Mothers like her exist everywhere, and apparently nothing can be done about them. (p. 313)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/reaper-man/mothers-like-her.md)