The Fourth Bear Quotes

“Prejudice is a product of ignorance that hides behind barriers of tradition.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“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.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“People don’t change just because you know more about them.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“PDR: Persons of Dubious Reality; refugees from the collective consciousness. Uninvited visitors who have fallen through the grating that divides the real, from the written. They arrive with their actions hardwired due to their repetitious existence and the older and more basic they are, the more rigidly they stick to them. Characters from cautionary tales are particularly mindless; they do what they do because it's what they've always done.

And it's our job to stop them.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Cucumbers are technically a fruit and in the same family as pumpkins, melons and squash, so it may benefit those markets, although, to be honest, giant melons don't strike me as potentially that commercial.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“She had met the man who was now her husband. He was seven foot three, and she was six foot two and a quarter. It was a match made perhaps not in heaven but certainly nearer the ceiling.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“The other three orderlies who accompanied him are critical in the hospital.'
'Critical?'
'Yes. Don't like the food, beds uncomfortable, waiting lists too long - usual crap. Other than that they're fine.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Mr Cripp's last words were 'Good heavens! It's full of holes!' said Mary. 'Do you have any idea to what he was referring?'
'Most puzzling,' confessed the Vicar. 'He might have been referring to anything - the greenhouse, his cucumber, the plot - anything.'
'The plot?' echoed Mary.
'I mean the vegetable plot,' he said hurriedly.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“I hate to admit it, but governmental deviousness is usually better explained by incompetence, vanity, and the need to protect one's job at all costs.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Prejudice is a product of ignorance that hides behind barriers of tradition,”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Jack said nothing. It was time to start putting his plan into action. Then he remembered: He didn't have one.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Ninety-seven minutes ago,” replied Copperfield. “Killed two male nurses and his doctor with his bare hands. The other three orderlies who accompanied him are critical in the hospital.” “Critical?” “Yes. Don’t like the food, beds uncomfortable, waiting lists too long—usual crap. Other than that they’re fine.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Prejudice is a product of ignorance that hides behind barriers of tradition, Inspector.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Remember, m'boy,' his old boss had said, eyes twinkling, 'that if anyone tries to get the better of you, stand up straight and say to yourself in an imperious air, 'I am the new Mrs. de Winter now!' You'll find it works wonders.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“There are not many secure hospitals that can boast someone who thought he was Napoleon, but St. Cerebellum’s could field three—not to mention a handful of serial killers whose names inexplicably yet conveniently rhymed with their crimes. Notorious cannibal “Peter the Eater” was incarcerated here, as were “Sasha the Slasher” and “Mr. Browner the Serial Drowner.” But the undisputed king of rhyme-inspired serial murder was Isle of Man resident Maximilian Marx, who went under the uniquely tongue-twisting epithet “Mad Max Marx, the Masked Manxman Axman.” Deirdre Blott tried to top Max’s clear superiority by changing her name so as to become “Nutty Nora Newsome, the Knife-Wielding Weird Widow from Waddersdon,” but no one was impressed, and she was ostracized by the other patients for being such a terrible show-off.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“She’s a journalist. She wrote a long piece about whether bears should be allowed to carry weapons for self-defence.’ ‘The “right to arm bears” controversy?”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“They continue to eat porridge and take long walks in the forest.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“It occurred to him that perhaps the Dark One had got a bum deal -- Demetrios would have made his own way to hell in the fullness of time, without an Allegro Equipe to take him there.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“I've heard of it," returned Mary, knowing full well that it was one of the most expensive and exclusive restaurants on the Thames. It was so exclusive, in fact, that most nights the guest never attained the necessary high criteria, and it remained empty.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Mary tuned in the wireless and heard a news bulletin on RadioToadReading informing everyone exactly why they should be panicking and what form this panicking should take.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Of course. We’ve been monitoring these cucumbers very closely and move in as soon as they start to approach the magic fifty-kilo mark to take samples, then observe the blast. McGuffin’s work at QuangTech was never about turning grass cuttings into crude; it was always cucumbers.” He smiled. “Cucumbers that can extract the deuterium and tritium from the groundwater, store it all up and then self-ignite. Finally cucumbers have a reason for being.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“European nation with highest politician/lover ratio: Few European states can hope to compete with France and Italy in this department, and the two nations have been battling for European political lothario supremacy for over thirty years. The contest has been increasingly acrimonious since 1998, when France was initially the clear winner but somehow “lost” sixty-eight illicit lovers in the recount and had to concede defeat. The following year was no less rocked in scandal, when the Italians were disqualified for “stretching the boundaries” of their elected representatives to include senior civil servants—and the crown was tossed back to France. No one was quite prepared for the disgraceful scandal the following year when it was discovered that one French minister had no mistress at all and “loved his wife,” a shocking revelation that led to his resignation and ultimately to the fall of the government.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“I’m glad to see you’re not mutilated in any way,” he said. “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.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Yes, there is some good news, Mrs. Dish. Your daughter has turned up in Gretna Green…. Gretna, yes, as in Green. Are you sitting down?…Good. Well, she’s married to Wallace Spoon.” Jack winced and held the receiver a little farther from his ear before continuing. “No, there are no grounds for criminal proceedings unless you can prove to us that she was forced into marriage, which she personally told me she wasn’t…. No, Mrs. Dish, I’m afraid not. The police have stopped ‘teaching people a lesson’ for quite some time now…. This isn’t a police matter, Mrs. Dish…. Yes, I’m sure the cow will be over the moon. Good day, Mrs. Dish.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear

“Jack thanked”
― Jasper Fforde, The Fourth Bear