The Fourth Bear (Nursery Crime, #2) QUOTES

2 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

4 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

6 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

8 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

10 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

12 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

14 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

16 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

18 " 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 (Nursery Crime, #2)

20 " They continue to eat porridge and take long walks in the forest. "

― Jasper Fforde , The Fourth Bear (Nursery Crime, #2)