Jasper Fforde

"“It’s easy. A lobotomized monkey could do it.” “And where are we going to find a lobotomized monkey at this time of night?”"

"The industrial age had only just begun; the planet had reached its Best Before date."

"You’ve got a face longer than a Dickens novel."

"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."

"My father told me that for the most part coincidences could be safely ignored: they were merely that chance discovery of one pertinent fact from a million or so possible daily interconnections. “Stop a stranger in the street,” he would say, “and delve into each other’s past. Pretty soon an astounding-too-amazing-to-be-chance coincidence will appear.”"

"“He said you were very dangerous.” “No more dangerous than anyone else who dares to speak the truth.”"

"“We’re fine, Joff. You?” “Not that good, Thurs. The Church of the Global Standard Deity has undergone a split.” “No!” I said with his much surprise and concern in my voice as I could muster. “I’m afraid so. The new Global Standard Clockwise Deity have broken away due to unresolvable differences over the direction in which the collection plate is passed round.” “Another split? That’s the third this week!” “Fourth,” replied Joffy dourly, “and it’s only Tuesday. The Standardized pro-Baptist conjoined Methodarian-Lutherian sisters of something-or-other split into two subgroups yesterday. Soon,” he added grimly, “there won’t be enough ministers to man the splits.”"

"“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “it is my considered opinion that most coincidences are simply quirks of chance—if you extrapolate the bell curve of probability you will find statistical abnormalities that seem unusual but are, in actual fact, quite likely, given the amount of people on the planet and the amount of different things we do in our lives.”"

"Marriage, like spinach and opera, was something I had never thought I would like."

"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."

"“Do you know what the worst bit about dying is?” “Tell me, Gran.” “You never get to see how it all turns out.”"

"Mr. McGregor’s a nasty piece of work, isn’t he? Quite the Darth Vader of children’s literature."

"My father said it was a delightfully odd—and dangerously self-destructive—quirk of humans that we were far more interested in pointless trivia then in genuine news stories."

"Edward, Edward," he said with a patronising smile, "there are no unanswered questions of any relevance. Every question that we need to ask has been answered fully. If you can't find the correct answer then you are obviously asking the wrong question."