Jasper Fforde famous quotes

I didn't set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Humility #Mind #Important

[from the television show,"Evade the Question Time"]At the end of the first round, I will award three points to Mr. Kaine for an excellent nonspecific condemnation, plus one bonus point for blaming the previous government and another for successfully mutating the question to promote the party line. Mr. van de Poste gets a point for a firm rebuttal, but only two points for his condemnation, as he tried to inject an impartial and intelligent observation.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Party #Intelligent #Awards

After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Summer #Reading #Healing

Books may look like nothing more than words on a page, but they are actually an infinitely complex imaginotransference technology that translates odd, inky squiggles into pictures inside your head.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Book #Technology #Looks

If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Life #Real #Book

If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Real #Book #World

The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Food #Nuts #Vegetables

Love and magic are like oil and water--they just don't mix.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Oil And Water #Oil #Water

Don't let anyone tell you the future is already written. The best any prophet can do is to give you the most likely version of future events. It is up to us to accept the future for what it is, or change it. It is easy to go with the flow; it takes a person of singular courage to go against it.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Giving #Events #Flow

Almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon.
-- Jasper Fforde

The safest course was actually the simplest-do nothing at all and hope everything turned out for the best. It wasn't a great plan, but it had the benefits of simplicity and a long tradition.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Life #Long #Simplicity

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Science #Opposites #Experts

Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Fashion #Government #All Time

Humans like stories. Humans need stories. Stories are good. Stories work. Story clarifies and captures the essence of the human spirit. Story, in all its forms—of life, of love, of knowledge—has traced the upward surge of mankind. And story, you mark my words, will be with the last human to draw breath.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Essence #Lasts #Needs

Cats aren't really friendly, they're just cozying up to the dominant life-form as a hedge against extinction.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Cat #Friendly #Extinction

Do you really think you'd win a PR war against a bunch of committed librarians?' He thought about this, but he knew I was right. The libraries were a treasured institution and so central to everyday life that government and commerce rarely did anything that might upset them.Some say they were more powerful than the military, or, if not, they were certainly quieter. As they say: Don't mess with librarians. Only they use a stronger word than 'mess'...
-- Jasper Fforde

#Powerful #Military #War

If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Art #Hate #Passion

Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Tea #Cups #Firsts

the best lies to tell are the ones people want to believe
-- Jasper Fforde

#Lying #Believe #People

If only life were that simple; if one could jump to the good parts and flick through the bad —
-- Jasper Fforde

#Simple

Sometimes, a word succeeds beyond the wildest dreams of its creators, like a virus sent into the world to infect common speech.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Dream #Succeed #Viruses

Anything devised by man has bureaucracy, corrpution and error hardwired at inception.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Men #Errors #Bureaucracy

I got Oedipus off the incest charge--technicality, of course--he didn't know it was his mother at the time.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Mother #Oedipus

Fiction wouldn't be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Fun #Fiction #Share

What’s the opposite of déjà vu, when you see something that hasn’t happened yet?” “I don’t know—avant verrais?
-- Jasper Fforde

#Opposites

I could almost see common sense and denial fighting away at each other within her. In the end, denial won, as it so often does.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Fighting #Common Sense #Doe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, O’er a plan to venge myself upon that cursed Thursday Next- This Eyre affair, so surprising, gives my soul such loath despising, Here I plot my temper rising, rising from my jail of text. “Get me out!” I said, advising, “Pluck me from this jail of text- or I swear I’ll wring your neck!
-- Jasper Fforde

#Jail #Giving #Soul

For a taste that's a bit more distinct, eat a bird before it's extinct.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Bird #Taste

It wasn’t going to be hard…it was going to be impossible. It wouldn’t deter me. I'd done impossible things several times in the past, and the prospect didn’t scare me as much as it used to.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Past #Scare #Done

I loved him, officer. More than any woman ever loved an egg.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Eggs #Officers

You speak baby gibberish?' asked Jack. 'Fluently. The adult-education center ran a course, and I have a lot of time on my hands.' 'So what did he say?' 'I don't know.' 'I thought you said you spoke gibberish?' 'I do. But your baby doesn't. I think he's speaking either pre-toddler nonsense, a form of infact burble or an obscure dialect of gobbledygook. In any event, I can't understand a word he's saying.' 'Oh.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Baby #Thinking #Hands

Mr. Pewter led them through to a library, filled with thousands of antiquarian books. 'Impressive, eh?' 'Very,' said Jack. 'How did you amass all these?' 'Well,' said Pewter, 'You know the person who always borrows books and never gives them back?' 'Yes...?' 'I'm that person.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Book #Giving #Library

Scientific thought - indeed, any mode of thought, whether it be religious or philosophical or anything else - is just like the fashions that we wear - only much longer lived. It's a little like a boy band.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Fashion #Religious #Philosophical

There are a lot of idiots in this country, and they deserve representation as much as the next man.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Country #Men #Next

Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn"t what it used to be?
-- Jasper Fforde

#Nostalgia #Used

Yes, and imagine a world where there were no hypothetical situations.
-- Jasper Fforde

#World #Imagine #Situation

I suggest we depict penguins as callous and unfeeling creatures who insist on bringing up their children in what is little more than a large chest freezer.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Children #Littles #Penguins

Journeys up the Metaphoric River are hugely enjoyable and highly recommended. Since every genre is nourished by its heady waters, a paddle steamer can take even the most walk-shy tourists to their chosen destination. As a bonus, there is traditionally at least one murder on board each trip--a "consideration" to the head steward will ensure that it is not you.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Journey #Rivers #Water

the Real-World was a sprawling mess of a book in need of a good editor.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Real #Book #Editors

This is our siblings of more famous BookWorld Personalities self-help group expalined Loser (Gatsby). That's Sharon Eyre, the younger and wholly disreputable sister of Jane; Roger Yossarian, the draft dodger and coward; Rupert Bond, still a virgin and can't keep a secret; Tracy Capulet, who has slept her way round Verona twice; and Nancy Potter, who is a Muggle.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Sibling #Self #Personality

If you even think about asking Harry Potter for an autograph, your day ends right now.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Thinking #Asking #Potters

Pretend to be mad and talk a lot. Then — and this is the important bit — do nothing at all until you absolutely have to and then make sure everyone dies.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Mad #Important

The Kingdom of Hereford was unique in the Ununited Kingdoms for having driving tests based on maturity, not age, much to the chagrin of a lot of males, some of whom were still failing to make the grade at thirty-two.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Maturity #Unique #Two

Love is a wonderful thing, my dear, but it leaves you wide open for blackmail.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Love Is #Wonderful #Dear

Quarkbeasts, for all their fearsome looks, are obedient to a fault. They are nine-tenths velociraptor and kitchen blender and one-tenth Labrador. It was the Labrador tenth that I valued most.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Kitchen #Looks #Nine

Books" - Snell smiled - "are a kind of magic.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Book #Magic #Kind

Lesson one in time travel, Thursday. First of all, we are all time travellers. The vast majority of us manage only one day per day.
-- Jasper Fforde

#One Day #Majority #Lessons

I don't need you to agree with me," she said quietly." I'll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It's an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion - and action.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Curiosity #Doubt

Edward, Edward," he said with a patronising smile, "there are no unanswered questions of any relevance. Every question that we need to ask has been answered fully. If you can't find the correct answer then you are obviously asking the wrong question.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Needs #Asking #Unanswered Questions

Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Art #Writing #Discovery

Marriage, like spinach and opera, was something I had never thought I would like.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Opera #Spinach

The name is Schitt," he replied. "Jack Schitt.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Names

Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don't make mistakes, you're not trying hard enough.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Mistake #Mind #Trying

He set fire to some potatoes, then cooked some undelivered post in the embers." - Dad "Did he now? What a strange fellow. I would have done it the other way around." - Stafford
-- Jasper Fforde

#Dad #Fire #Potatoes

She wasn't the only one to be physically morphed by reader expectation. Miss Havisham was now elderly whether she liked it or not, and Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker and smoked a ridiculously large pipe. The problem wasn't just confined to the classics. Harry Potter was seriously pissed off that he'd have to spend the rest of life looking like Daniel Radcliffe.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Elderly #Expectations #Missing

You many have noticed I have a temper ... but when I calmed down, I realized that this world, blighted and imperfect as it is, would be better with you in it.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Would Be #World #Imperfect

Comedy was one of those genres that while appearing quite jolly was actually highly dangerous.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Comedy #Genre #Dangerous

Don't move," said Sprockett."Mimes don't generally attack unless they are threatened.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Moving #Said #Mime

...the landscape inside Lord of the Rings was so stunning and so stupendous that it could be absorbed as a form of nourishment.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Landscape #Lord #Form

...being written by someone who might not quite understand the subconscious nuance of the character leaves us in varying degrees of flatness.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Character #Degrees #Might

Ill-fitting grammar are like ill-fitting shoes. You can get used to it for a bit, but then one day your toes fall off and you can't walk to the bathroom.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Fall #Shoes #One Day

Literature is claimed to be a mirror of the world,” I said, “but the Outlanders are fooling themselves. The BookWorld is as orderly as people in the RealWorld *hope* their own world to be—it isn’t a mirror, it’s an aspiration.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Mirrors #People #Literature

To espresso or to latte, that is the question...whether 'tis tastier on the palate to choose white mocha over plain...or to take a cup to go. Or a mug to stay, or extra cream, or have nothing, and by opposing the endless choice, end one's heartache...
-- Jasper Fforde

#Espresso #White #Heartache

Writing is not something you can do or you can't. It's not even something that 'other people do' or 'for smart people only' or even 'for people who finished school and went to University'. Nonsense. Anyone can do it. But no-one can do it straight off the bat. Like plastering, brain surgery or assembling truck engines, you have to do a bit of training - get your hands dirty - and make some mistakes.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Mistake #Smart #Dirty

Reality TV was to me the worst form of entertainment--the modern equivalent of paying sixpence to watch lunatics howling at the wall down at the local madhouse.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Wall #Reality #Entertainment

…Tell me, has anything odd happened to you recently? What do you mean, odd?' Unusual. Deviating from the customary. Something outside the usual parameters of normalcy. An occurrence of unprecedented weird.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Mean #Usual #Normalcy

How fishy on the fishiness scale? Ten is a stickleback and one is a whale shark." "A whale isn't a fish, Thursday." "A whale shark is--sort of." "All right, it's as fishy as a crayfish." "A crayfish isn't a fish." "A starfish, then." "Still not a fish." "This is a very odd conversation, Thursday.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Sharks #Whales #Thursday

He was, after all, the ultimate rebel -- it takes a lot of cojones to stand up to Zeus.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Rebel #Cojones #Zeus

Palindrome as well. My sister's name is Hannah. Father liked word games. He was fourteen times World Scrabble Champion. When he died, we buried him at Queenzieburn to make use of the triple word score.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Father #Games #Names

Humpty had always sat on walls, it was his way.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Wall #Way #Sat

I collect ex-boyfriends -- and more than five, at last count.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Ex Boyfriend #Lasts #Exes

History has rewritten itself so many times I'm not really sure how it was to begin with -- it's a bit like trying to guess the original color of a wall when it's been repainted eight times.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Wall #Eight #Color

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet says...it's payback time!
-- Jasper Fforde

#Payback #Rotten #Denmark

Death doesn't care about personalities - he's more interested in meeting quotas.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Personality #Quota #Care

If it's a chimera alert, we just follows the screams.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Scream #Chimera

Sometimes I don't know whether I'm thening or nowing.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Sometimes

To each our own Hamlet.
-- Jasper Fforde

Who do readers expect to see when they pick up this book? Who has won the Most Troubled Romantic Lead at the BookWorld Awards seventy-seven times in a row? Me. All me.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Book #Awards #Seven

I have the death sentence in seven genres.
-- Jasper Fforde

#Seven #Genre #Death Sentence