# Quote — Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels

> The dangerously high level of the stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in the The Owl that Morning. The reason for the crisis was clear: Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste and his ruling Commonsense Party had been discharging their duties with a reckless degree of responsibility that bordered on inspired sagacity. Instead of drifting from one crisis to the next and appeasing the nation with a steady stream of knee-jerk legislation and headline-grabbing but arguably pointless initiatives, they had been resolutely building a raft of considered long-term plans that concentrated on unity, fairness and tolerance. It was a state of affairs deplored by Mr. Alfredo Traficcone, leader of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, who wanted to lead the nation back onto the safer grounds of uninformed stupidity.

- Author: [Jasper Fforde](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde.md)
- Book: [First Among Sequels](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde/first-among-sequels.md)
- Page: 1
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jasper_Fforde#First_Among_Sequels_(2007)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde/first-among-sequels/the-dangerously-high

## More from this book

> Friday nodded and took a deep breath. “Has anyone noticed how short attention spans seem to have cast a certain latitude across the nation?”
>
> “Do I ever,” I replied, rolling my eyes and thinking of the endlessly downward clicking of the Read-O-Meter. “No one’s reading books anymore. They seem to prefer the mind numbing spectacle of easily digested trash TV and celebrity tittle-tattle.”
>
> “Exactly,” said Friday. “The long view has been eroded. We can’t see beyond six months, if that, and short-termism will spell our end.”

p. 264 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde/first-among-sequels/friday-nodded-and.md)

> The Commonsense Party’s first major policy reversal of perceived current wisdom was with the scrapping of performance targets, league standings and the attempt to make subtle human problems into figures on a graph that could be solved quickly and easily through “initiatives.” Arguing that important bodies such as the Health Service should have the emphasis on care and not on administration, the Commonsense party forced through legislation that essentially argued, “If it takes us ten years to get into the shit, it will take us twenty years to get out—and that journey starts now.”

p. 268 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde/first-among-sequels/the-commonsense-partys.md)

> “The ChronoGuard has shut itself down, and time travel is as it should be: technically, logically and theoretically…impossible.”
>
> “Good thing, too,” replied Landen. “It always made my head ache. In fact I was thinking of doing a self-help book for SF novelists eager to write about time travel. It would consist of a single word: Don’t.”

p. 350 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jasper-fforde/first-among-sequels/the-chronoguard-has.md)