Home > Work > Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey, #1)
21 " You want me to spy on a National Colour operative?''Wow,' she said, 'you got it. I thought I was going to have to explain that one for a lot longer. "
― Jasper Fforde , Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey, #1)
22 " Those that see too much quickly find themselves seeing nothing at all. "
23 " Curiosity is a descending stair…that leads to only who-knows-where. "
24 " The front room of his house was what I called 'untidy chic'. Prefects weren't subject to the same Rules on room tidiness, but since no one really enjoyed clutter, a certain style of ordered untidiness was generally considered de couleur for a prefect's room. "
25 " …the known had been so long dwarfed by the unknown that confusion was an easy bedfellow. "
26 " Marriage is an honorable estate and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse. "
27 " A surfeit of information often hides an untruth,” he said, with annoying clarity. "
28 " There is no problem on earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea. "
29 " It began to darken. Not the darkness that was already within the yateveo but an enveloping darkness, even blacker than the night but without depth or time. this was it. And as far as reporting what death was like, I can use only one word: colorless. But oddly, that wasn't quite it. After what could have been anything between a couple of seconds and a century, I saw a dim sliver of light open up in front of me, and I believed, for a moment, that I was about to be reborn. "
30 " Careful,' he said, 'Information can liberate but also imprisonate.... "
31 " …Negligible Senescence… "
32 " You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library.' She pointed to the shelf opposite. 'Over there was Catch-22, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe. "
33 " The best lies to tell," said Jane, "are the ones people want to believe. "
34 " I'm beginning to think you're the sort of person who does a great deal with very little."He meant a liar. "
35 " I've managed to bring the backlog down to a mere sixty-eight years," she announced with some small sense of achievement. "I hope to be able to start marking the papers of pupils who are still alive by the end of the decade. "
36 " I don't need you to agree with me," she said quietly." I'll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It's an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion - and action. "
37 " The youthful stationmaster wore a Blue Spot on his uniform and remonstrated with the driver that the train was a minute late, and that he would have to file a report. The driver retorted that since there could be no material differene between a train that arrived at a station and a station that arrived at a train, it was equally the staionmaster's fault. The stationmaster replied that he could not be blamed, because he had no control over the speed of the station; to which the engine driver replied that the stationmaster could control its placement, and that if it were only a thousand yards closer to Vermillion, the problem would be solved. To this the stationmaster replied that if the driver didn't accept the lateness as his fault, he would move the station a thousand yards farther from Vermillion and make him not just late, but demeritably overdue. "
38 " 2.5.03.02.005: Generally speaking, if you fiddle with something, it will break. Don't. "
39 " 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. "
40 " the best lies to tell are the ones people want to believe "