Jasper Fforde: The government was to raise the duty on cheese to 83 pe...

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

simplicity life long

The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.

Jasper Fforde

vegetables nuts food

Do you really think you'd win a PR war against a bunch of committed librarians?' He thought about this, but he knew I was right. The libraries were a treasured institution and so central to everyday life that government and commerce rarely did anything that might upset them.Some say they were more powerful than the military, or, if not, they were certainly quieter. As they say: Don't mess with librarians. Only they use a stronger word than 'mess'.

Jasper Fforde

powerful military war

It took me ten years and seven books to bag an agent - it took me that long to start writing good.

Jasper Fforde

writing book years

Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.

Jasper Fforde

anniversary love romantic

The name is Schitt," he replied. "Jack Schitt.

Jasper Fforde

names

Quarkbeasts, for all their fearsome looks, are obedient to a fault. They are nine-tenths velociraptor and kitchen blender and one-tenth Labrador. It was the Labrador tenth that I valued most.

Jasper Fforde

kitchen nine looks

Prejudice is a product of ignorance that hides behind barriers of tradition.

Jasper Fforde

tradition prejudice ignorance

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.

Jasper Fforde

book people thinking

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.

Jasper Fforde

important humility mind

Individual words, sounds, squiggles on paper with no meanings other than those with which our imagination can clothe them.

Jasper Fforde

paper imagination sound

What’s the opposite of déjà vu, when you see something that hasn’t happened yet?” “I don’t know—avant verrais?

Jasper Fforde

happened knows opposites

Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn"t what it used to be?

Jasper Fforde

used-to-be used nostalgia

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

Jasper Fforde

kind listening said

I could almost see common sense and denial fighting away at each other within her. In the end, denial won, as it so often does.

Jasper Fforde

common-sense fighting doe

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.

Jasper Fforde

inspiration views clever

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

Jasper Fforde

dear wonderful love-is

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

Jasper Fforde

viruses dream world

[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.

Jasper Fforde

awards party intelligent

Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.

Jasper Fforde

heed book

The government was to raise the duty on cheese to 83 percent, an unpopular move that would doubtless have the more militant citizens picketing cheese shops.