Best Jasper Fforde Quotes & Sayings

1.1.19.02.006: Team sports are mandatory in order to build character. Character is there to give purpose to team sports. — Jasper Fforde

My mind wanders terribly. I'm not wholly annoyed by my daydreaming as it has been immense use to me as regards imaginative thought, but it doesn't help when it comes to concentration. And writing needs concentration - lots of it. — Jasper Fforde

Really? I asked, which is probably the only answer to anything in Conspiracy. — Jasper Fforde

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

Funding for the Special Operations Network comes directly from the government. Most work is centralized, but all of the SpecOps divisions have local representatives to keep a watchful eye on any provincial problems. They are administered by local commanders, who liaise with the national offices for information exchange, guidance and policy decisions. Like any other big government department, it looks good on paper but is an utter shambles. Petty infighting and political agendas, arrogance and sheer bloody-mindedness almost guarantees that the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. — Jasper Fforde

I have the death sentence in seven genres. — 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

He also thought that 'abbreviation' was too long for its meaning, that 'monosyllabic' should have one syllable, 'dyslexic' should be renamed 'O' and 'unspeakable' should be respelt 'unsfzpxkable. — Jasper Fforde

Once we were on the high Plynlimon pass, we stopped to stretch our legs, change drivers, and make a short devotion to the shrine dedicated to the once-popular but now little-known Saint Aosbczkcs, the Patron Saint of Fading Relevance. — Jasper Fforde

Honor is kind of what you get when you weaponize manners, — Jasper Fforde

The only thing you really get to figure out after a lifetime of study is that there's more stuff to figure out. Frustrating and enlightening at the same time. — Jasper Fforde

I'd been an idiot to think that this was anything but a quest. Searches were nice and soft and cuddly and no one need be killed. A quest always demanded the death of a trusted colleague and one or more difficult dilemmas. I'd been in denial. I'd been a fool. — Jasper Fforde

Well, that's it." I said after we had waited for another five minutes and found ourselves still in a state of pleasantly welcome existence. "The ChronoGuard has shut itself down and time travel is as it should be: technically, logically, and theoretically ... impossible." "Good thing, too," reply Landon. "It always made my head ache. In fact, I was thinking of doing self help book for science-fiction novelists eager to write about time travel. It would consist of a single word: Don't. — Jasper Fforde

The universe always moves from an ordered state to a disordered one; that a glass may fall to the ground and shatter yet you never see a broken glass reassemble itself and then jump back on the table. — Jasper Fforde

Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey
and returned. — Jasper Fforde

He spent his life immersed in books to the cost of everything else, even personal relationships. "Friends," he'd once said, "are probably great, but I have forty thousands friends of my own already, and each of them needs my attention. — Jasper Fforde

Businessman, philanthropist, large egg. — Jasper Fforde

By spiritually I merely mean that I feel I have good in my soul and am inclined to follow the correct course of action given a prescribed set of circumstances. — Jasper Fforde

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

The best plans are always the simplest. — Jasper Fforde

I think that you could have used your vast intellect far more usefully by serving mankind instead of stealing it. -Mycroft
"Where's the fun in that? Goodness is weakness, pleasantness is poisonous, serenity is mediocrity and kindness is for losers. The best reason for committing Loathsome and detestable acts - and let's face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field - is purely for their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it dilutes the taste of wickedness to a lower level that is obtainable by almost anyone with an overdeveloped sense of avarice. True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good." -Acheron — Jasper Fforde

You are the best, most loving, supportive family anyone could ever have," I said through my sobs. "I'm so sorry if I'm a burden."
They all told me not to be so bloody silly, I told them not to swear, and Landen gave me a handkerchief for my tears. — 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

The industrial age had only just begun; the planet had reached its Best Before date. — 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

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

If a shred of integrity fell into your soul, it would die a very lonely death. — Jasper Fforde

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

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

Some people have asked me where I find the large quantity of prepositions that I need to keep my Bookworms fit and well. The answer is, of course, that I use omitted prepositions, of which, when mixed with dropped definite articles, make a nourishing food. There are a superabundance of these in the English language — Jasper Fforde

Ralph started to scream in pain. Not that 'stubbed your toe' sort of pain, but more a kind of 'detached kneecap' kind of pain, only with seven simultaneous childbirths, neuralgia, and a tooth abscess all mixed in as well, for good luck. The sort you hope you never get to experience. — Jasper Fforde

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

Marriage is an honorable estate and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse. — Jasper Fforde

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

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

Humans are the most gloriously bizarre creatures. — Jasper Fforde

Were you listening to a word I said '
'I kind of switched off when you drew breath. — Jasper Fforde

The opposition Prevailingwind Party led by Alfredo Traficcone — Jasper Fforde

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

The Fringes are the place of the slack-willed, slack-jawed and slack-hued, remarked Floyd Pinken, who could comfortably boast all three of those attributes, if truth be known. — Jasper Fforde

I hope that in my books there's an undertone of politics, basic tenets of how we should live. — Jasper Fforde

... the known had been so long dwarfed by the unknown that confusion was an easy bedfellow. — 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

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

Any word with the our ending could be spelt or, don'tchaknow." "Like neighbor instead of neighbour?" "It's a good idea," put in Snell. "Labor, valor, flavor, harbor - there must be hundreds. If we confine it to one geographical area, we can claim it as a local spelling idiosyncrasy. — Jasper Fforde

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

Our position as the policing agency within fiction gave us licensed access to abstract technology. One blast from the eraserhead in Bradshaw's rifle and the Minotaur would be reduced to the building blocks of his fictional existence: text and a bluish mist - all that is left when the bonds that link text to meaning are severed. — Jasper Fforde