The Commonsense Party’s first major policy reversal of perceived current wisdom was with the scrapping of performance targets, league standings and t… - Jasper Fforde

"You'll forgive me for saying this," said Webastow, looking over his glasses, "but this is the most harebrained piece of unadulterated stupidity that any government has ever undertaken anywhere."
"Thank you very much," replied Ms. Yogert courteously. "I'll make sure your compliments are forwarded to Prime Minister van de Post."

Humans are more or less identical except for a few peculiar habits generally delineated by geographic circumstances and historical precedent. But essentially, they’re all the same and reading from the same rule book. To get along you have to appreciate the rules, but also know that other people know the rules—and that they know that you know the rules. Get it?

"'Tis very strange!" he murmured, staring at the sun, trees, houses and traffic in turn. "It would take a rhapsody of wild and whirling words to do justice of all that I witness!"
"You're going to have to speak English out here."
"All this," explained Hamlet, waving his hands at the fairly innocuous Swindon street, "would take millions of words to describe correctly!"
"You're right. It would. That's the magic of the book imagino-transference technology," I told him. "A few dozen words conjure up an entire picture. But in all honesty the reader does most of the work."
"The reader? What's it got to do with him?"
"Well, each interpretation of an event, setting or character is unique to each of those who read it because they clothe the author's description with the memory of their own experiences. Every character they read is actually a complex amalgam of people that they've met, read or seen before—far more real than it can ever be just from the text on the page. Because every reader's experiences are different, each book is unique for each reader."