Quotes from 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.

The convent of the sacred order of the Blessed Ladies of the Lobster had once been a dank and dark medieval castle but was now, after a lick of paint and a few throw pillows, a dank and dark convent.

Working with those versed in the Mystical Arts was sometimes like trying to knit with wet spaghetti: just when you thought you'd gotten somewhere, it all came to pieces in your hands.

You're a liability and a wild card and trouble seems to follow you like a homesick spaniel.

You're not any of those. But I can't figure out if you're a clever person pretending to be thick, a thick person pretending to be clever, or just a chancer stumbling through the Winter without any sort of plan or thought at all.

The actor in with them was Graham Huxtable. He was putting on a felonious one-man performance of Twelfth Night. Persistent offender. He'll be fined and bound over. His Malvolio is truly frightful.

Humans have a very clear idea about how to behave, and on many occasions actually do. But it's sometimes disheartening that correct action is drowned out by endless chitter-chatter, designed not to find a way forward but to justify petty jealousies and illogically held prejudices.

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

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.

To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.

Miss Strange?" said the receptionist. "The King's Useless Brother has become bored and will see you early.

We're all something we're not,' he said. 'Every one of us is stuck between the person we want to be and the person we can be. And there doesn't have to be a why. All things have to do is feel right.

Sometimes I wonder if the human race isn't collectively as mad as a sack of door knobs.

Thursday, you mean everything to me. Not just because you're cute, smart, funny and have a devastatingly good figure and boobs to die for, but that you do right for right's sake - it's what you are and what you do. Even if I never get my magnum opus published, I will still die secure in the knowledge that my time on this planet was well-spent - giving support, love and security to someone who actually makes a difference .

It's important to collect evidence,' she said, 'even if disproved. That's how science works. Being proved wrong and then advancing. If I'm proved wrong a lot, I must be making headway, right?

There is no point in expending good money on the pursuit of an engine that can power aircraft without propellers. What is wrong with airships anyway? They have borne mankind aloft for over a hundred relatively accident-free years and I see no reason to impugn their popularity...

I have a mother,replied Hamlet gloomily as he bowed politely and kissed my mother's hand.She shares my uncle's bed. They should buy another one, in that case, she replied, practical as ever. They do a very good deal at IKEA, I'm told. ...

About ten degrees upslope of Fiction, I could see our nearest neighbor: Artistic Criticism. It was an exceptionally beautiful island, yet deeply troubled, confused and suffused with a blanketing layer of almost impenetrable bullshit.

The people to listen to are the ones who don't say very much

GSD?' murmured Mycroft. 'What in heaven's name is that?' 'Global Standard Deity,' answered Polly. 'It's a mixture of all the religions. I think it's meant to stop religious wars.

boiling Mr. Wolff alive was quite outside the realm of 'reasonable force' and the fact that the large pan of water would have taken at least six hours to reach boiling point strongly indicated premeditation.

Remember, m'boy,' his old boss had said, eyes twinkling, 'that if anyone tries to get the better of you, stand up straight and say to yourself in an imperious air, 'I am the new Mrs. de Winter now!' You'll find it works wonders.

She and I had not exchanged an intelligent word since we first met five hours before, and the reason was readily explained: Mrs Tiffen was dead, and had been for several years.

Clarke's Second Law of Egodynamics: "For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.