Jasper Fforde > Quotes

“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, Something Rotten

“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, The Well of Lost Plots

“Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“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, First Among Sequels

“Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just ... well, differently moraled, that's all.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
― Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels

“Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“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, The Well of Lost Plots

“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, The Big Over Easy

“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, Shades of Grey

“Sorry," [Hamlet] said, rubbing his temples. "I don't know what came over me. All of a sudden I had this overwhelming desire to talk for a very long time without actually doing anything.”
― Jasper Fforde

“Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“Dead. Never been that before. Not even once.”
― Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels

“Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence.”
― Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

“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, Shades of Grey

“Mr. McGregor's a nasty piece of work, isn't he? Quite the Darth Vader of children's literature.”
― Jasper Fforde

“I'll tell you what love is" I said, "It is blind devotion, unquestioning self humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your heart and soul to the smiter.”
― Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

“Growth purely for its own sake is the philosophy of cancer.”
― Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

“I would so hate to be a first-person character! Always on your guard, always having people read your thoughts!”
― Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

“Good. Item seven. The had had and that that problem. Lady Cavendish, weren’t you working on this?’

Lady Cavendish stood up and gathered her thoughts. ‘Indeed. The uses of had had and that that have to be strictly controlled; they can interrupt the imaginotransference quite dramatically, causing readers to go back over the sentence in confusion, something we try to avoid.’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s mostly an unlicensed-usage problem. At the last count David Copperfield alone had had had had sixty three times, all but ten unapproved. Pilgrim’s Progress may also be a problem due to its had had/that that ratio.’

‘So what’s the problem in Progress?’

‘That that had that that ten times but had had had had only thrice. Increased had had usage had had to be overlooked, but not if the number exceeds that that that usage.’

‘Hmm,’ said the Bellman, ‘I thought had had had had TGC’s approval for use in Dickens? What’s the problem?’

‘Take the first had had and that that in the book by way of example,’ said Lady Cavendish. ‘You would have thought that that first had had had had good occasion to be seen as had, had you not? Had had had approval but had had had not; equally it is true to say that that that that had had approval but that that other that that had not.’

‘So the problem with that other that that was that…?’

‘That that other-other that that had had approval.’

‘Okay’ said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, ‘let me get this straight: David Copperfield, unlike Pilgrim’s Progress, had had had, had had had had. Had had had had TGC’s approval?’

There was a very long pause. ‘Right,’ said the Bellman with a sigh, ‘that’s it for the moment. I’ll be giving out assignments in ten minutes. Session’s over – and let’s be careful out there.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

“Do I have to talk to insane people?"
"You're a librarian now. I'm afraid it's mandatory.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died a Lot

“You'll like it here; everyone is quite mad.”
― Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book

“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, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

“Death doesn't care about personalities - he's more interested in meeting quotas.”
― Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten

“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, Shades of Grey

“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, First Among Sequels

“Literary detection and firearms don't really go hand in hand; pen mighter than the sword and so forth. ”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“Fiction wouldn't be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

“…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, Lost in a Good Book

“Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable. ”
― Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels