Jasper Fforde
The cleanest souls are the easiest to soil.Collection: Soul
Death, I had discovered long ago, was available in varying flavors, and none of them particularly palatable.Collection: Long Ago
True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good - and we all know how rare that is.Collection: Evil
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.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Eight
How fishy on the fishiness scale? Ten is a stickleback and one is a whale shark." "A whale isn't a fish, Thursday." "A whale shark is--sort of." "All right, it's as fishy as a crayfish." "A crayfish isn't a fish." "A starfish, then." "Still not a fish." "This is a very odd conversation, Thursday.Collection: Sharks
Whenever I'm giving talks, I always ask people to think of the most obscure questions because I enjoy those the most. I always get the same questions: Why does Pickwick say "plock" and will there be a movie? I like the really obscure questions because there's so much in the books. There are tons and tons of references and I like when people get the little ones and ask me about them. It's good for the audience [and also] they realize there's more there.Collection: Book
I didn't set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind.Collection: Humility
Marriage, like spinach and opera, was something I had never thought I would like.Collection: Opera
Were you listening to a word I said ' 'I kind of switched off when you drew breath.Collection: Listening
Literary detection and firearms don't really go hand in hand; pen mighter than the sword and so forth.Collection: Hands
The name is Schitt," he replied. "Jack Schitt.Collection: Names
The inspiration comes from everywhere, from what I grew up with. There's so much silliness and nonsense in the world that we regard as normal working procedure. The satirical point of the view may be to counterpoint that. The way we look at classics has been hijacked by the intelligentsia - Shakespeare is highbrow and seen as something clever people do, which isn't right at all. I basically pull inspiration from everywhere.Collection: Clever
[from the television show,"Evade the Question Time"]At the end of the first round, I will award three points to Mr. Kaine for an excellent nonspecific condemnation, plus one bonus point for blaming the previous government and another for successfully mutating the question to promote the party line. Mr. van de Poste gets a point for a firm rebuttal, but only two points for his condemnation, as he tried to inject an impartial and intelligent observation.Collection: Party
I collect ex-boyfriends -- and more than five, at last count.Collection: Ex Boyfriend
…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.Collection: Mean
A good butler should save his employer's life at least once a day.Collection: Should
Sometimes, a word succeeds beyond the wildest dreams of its creators, like a virus sent into the world to infect common speech.Collection: Dream
Writing is not something you can do or you can't. It's not even something that 'other people do' or 'for smart people only' or even 'for people who finished school and went to University'. Nonsense. Anyone can do it. But no-one can do it straight off the bat. Like plastering, brain surgery or assembling truck engines, you have to do a bit of training - get your hands dirty - and make some mistakes.Collection: Mistake
Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.Collection: War
Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.Collection: Fashion
Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.Collection: Imagination
What’s the opposite of déjà vu, when you see something that hasn’t happened yet?” “I don’t know—avant verrais?Collection: Opposites
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.Collection: Giving
I would so hate to be a first-person character! Always on your guard, always having people read your thoughts!Collection: Hate
We all make mistakes at some time in our lives, some more than others. It is only when the cost is counted in human lives that people really take notice.Collection: Mistake
There's something rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet says...it's payback time!Collection: Payback
Anything devised by man has bureaucracy, corrpution and error hardwired at inception.Collection: Men
Humpty had always sat on walls, it was his way.Collection: Wall
There are a lot of idiots in this country, and they deserve representation as much as the next man.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Past
Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.Collection: Love
Books" - Snell smiled - "are a kind of magic.Collection: Book
Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn"t what it used to be?Collection: Nostalgia
People don't change just because you know more about them.Collection: People
Sometimes choice is a luxury that fate does not afford us.Collection: Fate
Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Baby
You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library. She pointed to the shelf opposite. Over there was Catch-22, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe.Collection: Believe
I wished I could share my own optimism.Collection: Optimism
The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think; a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.Collection: Morning
If you even think about asking Harry Potter for an autograph, your day ends right now.Collection: Thinking
A missing arm might ruin your symmetry. Personal asymmetry where I come from is a big taboo and brings great shame on the family and sometimes even the whole village." "Do you then have to kill yourself over it or something?" "Goodness me, no! The family and village just have to learn to be ashamed--and nuts to them for being so oversensitive.Collection: Nuts
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.Collection: Mad
A surfeit of information often hides an untruth,” he said, with annoying clarity.Collection: Information
The industrial age had only just begun; the planet had reached its Best Before date.Collection: Age
Marriage is an honorable estate and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse.Collection: Excuse
Love isn't sensible, Red. I think that's the point.Collection: Thinking
This is our siblings of more famous BookWorld Personalities self-help group expalined Loser (Gatsby). That's Sharon Eyre, the younger and wholly disreputable sister of Jane; Roger Yossarian, the draft dodger and coward; Rupert Bond, still a virgin and can't keep a secret; Tracy Capulet, who has slept her way round Verona twice; and Nancy Potter, who is a Muggle.Collection: Sibling