Jasper Fforde Quotes

And he gave me a smile that looked as though it had come from a hastily-read handbook on cultivating personal charm. ~ Jasper Fforde

Information can liberate but also imprisonate. ~ Jasper Fforde

Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books. ~ Jasper Fforde

Did the memory erasure device work, Uncle?"
"The what?"
"The memory erasure device. You were testing it when I last saw you."
"Don't know what you're talking about, dear girl. ~ Jasper Fforde

Businessman, philanthropist, large egg. ~ Jasper Fforde

That's the big difference between [the BookWorld] and [the RealWorld]," said Plum. "When things happen after a randomly pointless event, all that follows is simply unintended consequences, not a coherent narrative thrust that propels the story forward."
I rolled the idea of unintended consequences around in my head. "Nope, I said finally, "you've got me on that one."
"It confuses me, too," admitted Plum, "but that's the RealWorld for you. A brutal and beautiful place, run for the most part on passion, fads, incentives, and mathematics. A lot of mathematics. ~ Jasper Fforde

I hate to admit it, but governmental deviousness is usually better explained by incompetence, vanity, and the need to protect one's job at all costs. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

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

Sometimes your destiny takes you to dark places where you'd rather not be, but destiny, as they say, is destiny. ~ Jasper Fforde

Staying awake in the winter requires considerable pantry, a lot of luck, warm clothes, and several dozen good books. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

Perhaps fantasy offers imaginative escapism more than other genres. ~ Jasper Fforde

She used to only play "Help Yourself," but now she only plays "Delilah." Is that normal?
"It's not unusual. ~ Jasper Fforde

Fanfiction isn't copying - it's a celebration. One long party, from the first capital letter to the last full stop! ~ Jasper Fforde

I started writing because I wanted to write scripts, but I wasn't very good at it. Then I started writing short stories, sort of as treatments for the film scripts, and I found I enjoyed writing short stories far more than I enjoyed writing film scripts. Then the short stories got longer and longer and suddenly, I had novels. ~ Jasper Fforde

She had large, questioning eyes that seemed to draw me in and a sense of quiet outrage that simmered just beneath the surface. More than anything, within her features, there was a streak of wild quirkiness that made her dazzlingly attractive. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

A Quarkbeast is a small hyena-shaped creature that is covered in leathery scales and often described as: 'One tenth Labrador, six-tenths velociraptor and three-tenths kitchen food blender. ~ Jasper Fforde

It's simple. If you go to see 'Saturday Night Fever' expecting it to be good, it's a corker. However, if you go expecting it to be a crock of shit, it's that, too. Thus 'Saturday Night Fever' can exist in two mutually opposing states at the very same time, yet only by the weight of our expectations. From this principle we can deduce that any opposing states can be governed by human expectation - even, as in the case of retro-deficit-engineering, the present use of a future technology."
"I think I understand that. Does it work with any John Travolta movie?"
"Only the artistically ambiguous ones such as 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Face/Off.' 'Battlefield Earth' doesn't work, because it's a stinker no matter how much you think you're going to like it, and 'Get Shorty' doesn't work either, because you'd be hard-pressed not to enjoy it, irrespective of any preconceived notions. ~ Jasper Fforde

Humans are the most gloriously bizarre creatures. ~ Jasper Fforde

Said by Maltcassion the Dragon:
"Humans," he scoffed. "Always so inquiring about stuff. Never satisfied with the status quo. It will be your downfall, but oddly enough, it´s also one of your more endearing features."
"Do we have any otheres?"
"Oy yes, plenty. ~ Jasper Fforde

We try to make art perfect because we never manage it in real life ~ Jasper Fforde

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

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

There is a contract between the reader and the writer. The readers give me their hard-earned cash, and I have to entertain them. ~ Jasper Fforde

He had found that all snails have the capacity to do over one hundred miles per hour and find their way to a given location with pinpoint accuracy, but didn't because they were horribly lazy and couldn't be bothered. ~ Jasper Fforde

I was driving, which might have been unusual anywhere but here in the Kingdom of Hereford, which was unique in the Ununited Kingdoms for having driving tests based on maturity, not age. That explained why I'd had a license since I was thirteen, while some were still failing to make the grade at forty. ~ Jasper Fforde

After all, color in itself has no color - it's simply a construction of the mind: a sensation, like the Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly and the smell of honeysuckle. ~ Jasper Fforde

Don't anyone move ... I think we've driven into a mimefield. ~ Jasper Fforde

Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just ... well, differently moraled, that's all. ~ Jasper Fforde

Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable. ~ Jasper Fforde

Mind you, if we we're talking about regeneration, we could go a step further and take a leaf out of the sponge book. There are sponges you can chop to pieces, whiz up in the blender, and then press through a sieve, but they'll still regenerate."
"Useful, maybe," I replied, "but I think there is a limit to the amount of fun you could have as a sponge. ~ Jasper Fforde

I am by turns a petulant adolescent and a mature man, a melancholy loner and a wit telling actors their trade. I cannot decide whether I'm a philosopher or a moping teenager, a poet or a murderer, a procrastinator or a man of action. I might be truly mad or sane pretending to be mad or even mad pretending to be sane. ~ Jasper Fforde

Miltons were, on the whole, the most enthusiastic poet followers. A flick through the London telephone directory would yield about four thousand John Miltons, two thousand William Blakes, a thousand or so Samuel Colleridges, five hundred Percy Shelleys, the same of Wordsworth and Keats, and a handful of Drydens. Such mass name-changing could have problems in law enforcement. Following an incident in a pub where the assailant, victim, witness, landlord, arresting officer and judge had all been called Alfred Tennyson, a law had been passed compelling each namesake to carry a registration number tattooed behind the ear. It hadn't been well received
few really practical law-enforcement measures ever are. ~ Jasper Fforde

She was the sort of parent you would want to have living close by, but only on the grounds that she would then never come to stay. I loved her dearly, but in small doses. ~ Jasper Fforde

You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library.' She pointed to the shelf opposite. 'Over there was Catch-22, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe. ~ Jasper Fforde

It's somewhat bizarre to learn that many of you think that other humans are somehow different enough to be hated and killed when in reality you're all tiresomely similar in outlook, needs and motivation, and differ only by peculiar habits, generally shaped by geographical circumstances. ~ Jasper Fforde

I had learned from my own father's death many years ago that the end of one's life and dying are two very different things indeed, and took solace in that. ~ Jasper Fforde

Class clowns become actors. ~ Jasper Fforde

What is without dispute ... is that the readers need [the BookWorld] just as much as we need them - to bring order to their apparent chaos, if nothing else. ~ Jasper Fforde

Just walk through him," I said, still deep in thought. "and if you ever wanted to know how a moose works, just stop halfway and take a good look around. ~ Jasper Fforde

Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them. ~ Jasper Fforde

The verses of Byron, Keats or Poe are real whether they are in bootleg form or not. You can still read them for the same effect. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

This must have been how it all began with Chymes," sighed Jack. "A small
omission on one case, an 'embellishment' on the next. The question is not about
what's best but what's right. Chymes had confused the two and compromised not
only his own integrity but that of the police - and the due process of law. ~ Jasper Fforde

Personally I have a great deal of fun doing it, which is an inspiration in itself really. It really allows me to daydream, as in "schooldream" which is daydreaming with ink and get paid for it which is something I don't say to schools when I go in and talk to them. ~ Jasper Fforde

Though his death would not fill me with any sense of sadness, I would probably feel the loss. Even enemies are part of one. ~ Jasper Fforde

Governments might come and go, wars will reshape the Ununited Kingdoms many times. But companies will stay, and flourish. Show me any major even on this planet and I will show you the economic reason behind it. Commerce is all powerful, Miss Strange. Commerce rules our lives. ~ Jasper Fforde

People who read my books have an open mind when it comes to new, bizarre, interesting and exciting ideas. ~ Jasper Fforde

I can get a table at the Inn Uendo. The maîtred' is missing a space, and I promised to give her one. ~ Jasper Fforde

Well, each interpretation of an event, setting or character is unique to each of those who read it because they clothe the author's description with the memory of their own experiences. Every character they read is actually a complex amalgam of people they've met, read or seen before - far more real than it can ever be just from the text on the page. Because every reader's experiences are different, each book is unique for each reader. ~ Jasper Fforde

Prices of semicolons, plot devices, prologues and inciting incidents continued to fall yesterday, lopping twenty points off the TomJones Index. ~ Jasper Fforde

Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world. ~ Jasper Fforde

In the creative industries, there are few things more exciting than a zinger - a thought, idea, line, plot device - anything really, that just totally works in a fundamentally new and fresh way. It's like a uniquely lovely melody or a new taste idea in cooking. Something special, something new, something wonderful. They're also very rare. ~ Jasper Fforde

According to naturalists, the dragon belonged to the animal kingdom for sure, almost definitely to the vertebrates, and was as likely as not a reptile. Other ~ Jasper Fforde

Vanity's contribution to Fiction in general was an abundance of cheap labour and the occasional blockbuster, which was accepted into Fiction with an apologetic 'gosh, don't know how that happened'. ~ Jasper Fforde

Everything comes to an end. A good bottle of wine, a summer's day, a long-running sitcom, one's life, and eventually our species. The question for many of us is not that everything will come to an end but when. And can we do anything vaguely useful until it does? ~ Jasper Fforde

Cucumbers are technically a fruit and in the same family as pumpkins, melons and squash, so it may benefit those markets, although, to be honest, giant melons don't strike me as potentially that commercial. ~ Jasper Fforde

So my humor, I'd say, comes from a mixture of lowbrow comedy shows and highbrow theater. It's an interesting mix. ~ Jasper Fforde

You're very patronizing," I pointed out. "Very clever of you to notice, girlie. Have a look at this. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

Are you okay?" asked Finisterre.
"Annoyed," I said, giving him my hand so he could heave me to my feet.
"Yes, I should imagine being attacked by a nun might be annoying. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

Do you want some advice? Go home. You're far too inquisitive, and here in East Carmine curiosity only ends one way."
"Death?"
"Worse - enlightenment. ~ Jasper Fforde

If you even *need* a government, added Stig, you are a life-form flawed beyond redemption. ~ Jasper Fforde

Don't get in a blue car on a Thursday.'
'Which Thursday?'
'Any Thursday.'
'What kind of car?'
'A blue one. On a Thursday.'
'Okay. ~ Jasper Fforde

Before, I suspected I might not amount to anything, and now I now I won't, so at least it takes away the wearisome burden of delusive hope ~ Jasper Fforde

There were filing cabinets, desks once occupied by long-redundant agents, tables, piles of paperwork, back issues of Spells magazine, several worn-out sofas, and in the corner, a moose. ~ Jasper Fforde

Rotten luck," said Falstaff as I walked past. "There were the remains of a fine woman about Havisham. ~ Jasper Fforde

In any regime there is always something that one should agree with, and in Shades there are quite a few notions that, on the face of it, seem like a good thing - the strict adherence to good manners, the fact that learning a musical instrument is compulsory, as is dancing, performing musicals and an hour's Useful Work every day in order to properly discharge your duty to society. But a cage is still a cage, irrespective of the nature of its bars. ~ Jasper Fforde

Take no heed of her," explained Jones apologetically. "She reads a lot of books. ~ Jasper Fforde

Another one of your quippy japes? ~ Jasper Fforde

O brave new world, that has such stories in't! ~ Jasper Fforde

It was written in the ancient RUNIX spell-language, and is read-only and can't be modified. ~ Jasper Fforde

The inspiration comes from everywhere, from what I grew up with. There's so much silliness and nonsense in the world that we regard as normal working procedure. The satirical point of the view may be to counterpoint that. The way we look at classics has been hijacked by the intelligentsia - Shakespeare is highbrow and seen as something clever people do, which isn't right at all. I basically pull inspiration from everywhere. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

The cleanest souls are the easiest to soil. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

All of everything came into existence simply because it wanted to be. The big bang wasn't so much a big bang as a hasty dash toward an opportunity to trade nothingness for somethingness. The main contributory factor to the entire universe was a momentary effect in need of a cause. ~ Jasper Fforde

These are the real puzzles that will face humanity. There is, he claims, a single theory that will explain not only why the queue you choose at a supermarket is always the slowest but why trains always leave on time when you are late and leave late when you are on time." "There isn't an answer to those," murmured Madeleine doubtfully. "It just happens." "That's what they used to say about lightning," replied Pandora, "and rainbows. ~ Jasper Fforde

Of all the Winter Service Industries, the Winter Consul was the most dangerous. Few who joined expected to last out the decade, yet recruitment was never much of a problem. You didn't find the job, they said, it found you. No-one ever who entered the Winter voluntarily wasn't trying to leave something behind. ~ Jasper Fforde

This is Fiction, and the truth is whatever you make it. You can interpret the situation in any way you want, and all of the scenarios could be real
and what's more, depending on how you act now, any one of them could become real. ~ Jasper Fforde

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

The best lies to tell," said Jane, "are the ones people want to believe. ~ Jasper Fforde

If this were a novel, you'd have to start a new chapter as soon as I appeared. ~ Jasper Fforde

There were seven thermonuclear devices? queried Parks, who had latched on to Jack's outlandish explanation without too much difficulty, as should you. ~ Jasper Fforde

All those words,' she whispered, 'so diligently placed together, and so pointlessly torn apart. ~ Jasper Fforde

Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse. ~ Jasper Fforde

We're in a psuedoscientific technobabble. ~ Jasper Fforde

Jack said nothing. It was time to start putting his plan into action. Then he remembered: He didn't have one. ~ Jasper Fforde

I also read about Heathcliff's unexpected three-year career in Hollywood under the name Buck Stallion and his eventual return to the pages of Wuthering Heights. ~ Jasper Fforde

They'd never get here in time. It's easy. A lobotomized monkey could do it." "And where are we going to find a lobotomized monkey at this time of night? ~ Jasper Fforde

What's a Somnubuvorus?'
'It looks like a cross between a boabab and a turnip, and about the size of a telephone box. It's actually not a plant at all but a fungus that releases puffs of hallucinogenic spores into the breeze. Anyone who inhales them suddenly becomes convinced that being near the Somnubuvorus will enlighten and enrich them with hard-hitting and devastatingly relevant social and political commentary. Then, of course, you are soon overcome with a sense of listlessness and torpidity, and fall fast asleep'.
'It sounds like what would happen if you weapoinised French cinema ~ Jasper Fforde

Joffy had decided many years before that the problem with religion wasn't religion itself but its flagrant misuse as an absolutist argument to promote narrow tribal agendas. ~ Jasper Fforde

Bah!" exclaimed Rochester. "Pixies both! Begone with you; we will talk later! ~ Jasper Fforde

Pretty?' I said, swivelling in the driver's seat to face him, 'you want to ask me out because I'm pretty?' 'Is there a problem with asking you out because you're pretty?' 'I think you blew it,' said Tiger with a grin. 'You should be asking her out because she's smart, witty, mature beyond her years and every moment in her company makes you want to be a better person - pretty of face should be at the bottom of the list.' 'Oh, blast,' said Perkins despondently. 'It should, shouldn't it? ~ Jasper Fforde

There was a day when one could honestly and innocently enjoy the sheer pleasure of a good sticky toffee pudding; when ice cream was nice cream and Bakewell tart really was baked well. Tastes change, though, and the world of the sweet has often been sour, having to go through some dramatic overhaulage in order to keep pace. Whilst a straightforward sausage and a common kedgeree maintain their hold on the nation's culinary choices, the pudding has to stay on its toes to tantalise our taste buds. From low fat through to no fat, from sugar free through to taste free; what the next stage is we can only wait and see ... '
CILLA BUBB. Don't Desert Your Desserts ~ Jasper Fforde

Without a yardstick sometimes the high points can be taken for granted. ~ Jasper Fforde

[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