Quotes from Jasper Fforde

It's confusing to suddenly have to reappraise all you know, to rejigger one's outlook in the light of new knowledge, and realize that everything you thought was truth and justice was little more than an elaborate fiction.

It was Spam, but everyone was too tired to complain.

Only humans define themselves by conflict with other humans.

None of us were surprised when he switched to a career of crime. He was something of a lech. He made one of the students pregnant.

Sometimes living in the BookWorld is like living in Legoland.

She's a journalist. She wrote a long piece about whether bears should be allowed to carry weapons for self-defence.' 'The "right to arm bears" controversy?

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

The leader was identified by his dental records—why he had them on him, no one was quite sure.

an enchanted tent that swore angrily to itself when self-pitching, thus saving you the effort.

To a text-based life-form, unpredictable syntax and poor grammar is a source of huge discomfort. 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. Poor syntax is even worse. Change word order and a sentence useless for anyone Yoda except you have.

but that was a bit of a mouthful, so he was known more affectionately as the Cat formerly known as Cheshire or, more simply, the Cat. His real name was Archibald, but that was reserved for his mother when she was cross with him.

May the Spring embrace you', 'And embrace you, too.

But that was what research and development were like. Full of semi-triumphs and perplexing unforeseen consequences like the whole violent hiccuping thing when conjuring up fire - or the propensity for fillings to fall out of bystanders' teeth when attempting to tease a rainstorm out of a cloud.

No one's going to be killing any Dragons,' said the Princess. 'It is my order.' 'I'm a knight,' he said simply, 'killing Dragons is what I do.' 'And burning idiots like you to powdered charcoal,' said Colin, 'is what we do.

Just because of an unusual genetic abnormality, Hollywood thinks it can portray us as dysfunctional social pariahs. Ask yourself this: Have you ever been, or know anyone who has ever been, a victim of albino crime?" The protest follows hot on the heels of last week's demonstrations when Colombians and men with ponytails complained of being unrelentingly portrayed as drug dealers. —Extract from The Mole, July 31, 2003

Most people thought you just waved your hands and sim-sallah-bim, but it was a lot more complex than that. Sorcery was not so much doing what you wanted to do but doing what you could do—or ingeniously finding a way around the physical limitations of the craft.

Nasil and Owen transport organs for transplant these days—and deliver takeout. I hope they don't get those mixed up.

The honorific was long winded, but correct. Technically speaking, all practitioners should be introduced this way, but it just soaked up useful time that might be otherwise spent drinking tea, or chatting.

Inviting a goblin to cross your threshold was a recipe for disaster, and certainly worse than doing the same with a vampire. With the latter all you got was a nasty bite, but the company, the extraordinarily good sex and the funny stories more than made up for it—apparently.

Bah! exclaimed Rochester. Pixies both! Begone with you; we will talk later!

Emperor," I said, "if a character has run its course, then it's run its course. What do you want me to do? Go and talk the author out of it?" "Would you?" replied Zhark, opening his eyes wide. "Would you really do that?" "No. You can't have characters trying to tell their authors what to write in their books. Besides, within your books you are truly evil and need to be punished.

They were my aunt and uncle; I loved them deeply, although both were mad as pants.

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.

Why does everyone think I've been in prison?" "Because you were heading towards either death or prison when we last met—and you are not dead.