Some Birthdays Are Like That

“Listen to what it says in the horoscopes: ‘If it is your birthday, there may be an increased amount of mail. Expect gifts, friendly salutations from people and the occasional surprise. Possibility of cake.’ That’s so weird—I wonder if any of it will come true?” 

Jasper Fforde, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels (New York: Penguin Group, 2007), p. 50

Hitting 50 Isn’t So Bad

That’s the thing about hitting fifty. All your life you think the half century is death’s adolescence, but actually it’s really not that bad, as long as you can remember where you left your glasses.

Jasper Fforde, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels (New York: Penguin Group, 2007), p. 17

Real world versus fiction

“A lot happens in the real world for no good reason. If this were fiction, this little incident would have relevance thirty or so chapters from now; as it is it means nothing—after all, not every incident in life has a meaning."

"Tell that to the scholars who study me," Hamlet snorted disdainfully, then thought for a moment before adding: "If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Over-long, detailed to the point of distraction—and ultimately without a major resolution."

“Perhaps," I said thoughtfully, "that’s exactly what we like about it."

Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten (London: Hodder, 2004), p. 75.

Reality and fiction are that close

“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.”

Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 206. (speaker is Victor Analogy, a SpecOps LiteraTec)