Quotes from Jasper Fforde

I collect ex-boyfriends -- and more than five, at last count.

Don't move, said Sprockett.Mimes don't generally attack unless they are threatened.

I suggest we depict penguins as callous and unfeeling creatures who insist on bringing up their children in what is little more than a large chest freezer.

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

Stay close, do what I say and make as many mistakes as you want – just never the same one twice.

You nearly killed eight people! I managed to gasp out loud. My count was closer to twelve, returned Havisham as she opened the door. And anyhow, you can't nearly kill someone. Either they are dead or they are not.

The Kingdom of Hereford was unique in the Ununited Kingdoms for having driving tests based on maturity, not age, much to the chagrin of a lot of males, some of whom were still failing to make the grade at thirty-two.

Scientific thought - indeed, any mode of thought, whether it be religious or philosophical or anything else - is just like the fashions that we wear - only much longer lived. It's a little like a boy band.

We were developing a machine that used egg white, heat and sugar to synthesize methanol when a power surge caused an implosion. Owens was meringued. By the time we chipped him out the poor chap had expired.

The Goliath Corporation was to altruism what Genghis Khan was to soft furnishings.

I've managed to bring the backlog down to a mere sixty-eight years, she announced with some small sense of achievement. I hope to be able to start marking the papers of pupils who are still alive by the end of the decade.

Acceptable rules of conduct were suspended when it came to the spoon shortage. The deficit had gotten so bad that prices were all but unaffordable, and dynastic spoon succession had become a matter of considerable interest. Spoons were even postcode engraved and carried on one's person to eliminate theft, and good table manners, one of the eight pillars upon which the Collective was built, had been relaxed to allow tea to be stirred - shockingly - with the handle of a fork.

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

Who do readers expect to see when they pick up this book? Who has won the Most Troubled Romantic Lead at the BookWorld Awards seventy-seven times in a row? Me. All me.

It wasn't going to be hard…it was going to be impossible. It wouldn't deter me. I'd done impossible things several times in the past, and the prospect didn't scare me as much as it used to.

He set fire to some potatoes, then cooked some undelivered post in the embers. - Dad Did he now? What a strange fellow. I would have done it the other way around. - Stafford

The name is Schitt, he replied. Jack Schitt.

2.3.06.02.087: Unnecessary sharpening of pencils constitutes a waste of public resources, and will be punished as appropriate.

To each our own Hamlet.

Sometimes, a word succeeds beyond the wildest dreams of its creators, like a virus sent into the world to infect common speech.

Love isn't sensible, Red. I think that's the point.

Love is a wonderful thing, my dear, but it leaves you wide open for blackmail.

I don't believe in coincidences. Neither do I. That's a coincidence, isn't it?

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?