"Last season we had the Reduced Shakespeare Company doing 'Highlights of the Mostly Complete History of Condensing Stuff (abridged)'." - Jasper Fforde

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "it is my considered opinion that most coincidences are simply quirks of chance—if you extrapolate the bell curve of probability you will find statistical abnormalities that seem unusual but are, in actual fact, quite likely, given the amount of people on the planet and the amount of different things we do in our lives."

Having to mix with dimwits is hideously boring. Great-Uncle Mycroft put it best when he said that for a genius this planet is excruciatingly dull, only made briefly more illuminating when another genius happens along.

I’d come to realize over the years that anything created by mankind had error, mischief and bureaucratic officialdom hardwired at inception, and the fictional world was no different.