Cornelia Funke

“The night breathed through the apartment like a dark animal. The ticking of a clock. The groan of a floorboard as he slipped out of his room. All was drowned by its silence. But Jacob loved the night. He felt it on his skin like a promise. Like a cloak woven from freedom and danger.”

“Who are you?' Mo looked at the White Women. Then he looked at Dustfinger's still face.Guess.' The bird ruffled up its golden feathers, and Mo saw that the mark on its breast was blood.You are Death.' Mo felt the word heavy on his tongue. Could any word be heavier?”

“And he will have a great aunt called Elinor who tells him there's a world not like this one. A world with neither fairies nor glass men, but with animals who carry their young in a pouch in front of their bellies, and birds with wings that beat so fast it sounds like the humming of a bumblebee, with carriages that drive along without any horses and pictures that move on their own accord... She will tell him that even the most powerful men don't carry swords in the other world, but there are much, much more terrible weapons there...She will even claim that the people there have built coaches that can fly...So the boy will think that perhaps he'll have to go alone one day, if he wants to see that world...Because it must be exciting in that other world, much more exciting than in his own...”

“They're all cruel,' he said. 'The world I come from, the world you come from, and this one, too. Maybe the people don't see the cruelty in your world right away, it's better hidden, but it's there all the same.”

“believe me. Sometimes when life looks to be at its grimmest, there's a light hidden at the heart of things.Clive Barker, Abarat”

“you can not fully read a book without being alone. But through this very solitude you become intimately involved with people whom you might never have met otherwise, either because they have been dead for centuries or because they spoke languages you cannot understand. And, nonetheless, they have become your closest friends, your wisest advisors, the wizards that hypnotize you, the lovers you have always dreamed of.-Antonio munoz molinas, "the power of the pen”

“Believe, believe, believe”

“The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages.”

“What on earth have you packed in here? Bricks?" asked Mo as he carried Meggie's book-box out of the house.You're the one who says books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them," said Meggie.”

“It [the book] was spinning a magic spell around her heart, sticky as a spider's web and enchantingly beautiful..”

“Historier har aldrig nogen slutning, Meggie” havde han engang sagt til hende, ”selvom bøgerne gerne vil bilde os det ind. Historierne går altid videre, de slutte lige så lidt på den sidste side, som de begynder på den første.”

“Erwachsene erinnern sich nicht daran wie es war, ein Kind zu sein,auch wenn sie es behaupten.Sie wissen es nicht mehr. Glaub mir.Sie haben alles vergessen. Wie viel größer ihnen die Welt damals erschien.Das es mühsam sein konnte, auf einen Stuhl zu klettern. Wie fühlte es sich an, immer hoch zu blicken?Vergessen. Sie wissen es nicht mehr. Du wirst es auch vergessen. Manchmal reden Erwachsene davon, wie schön es war, ein King zu sein. Sie träumen sogar davon, wieder eins zu sein. Doch was haben sie geträumt als sie Kinder waren?Weißt du es? Ich glaube sie träumten davon, endlich erwachsen zu sein.”

“All writers are insane!”

“with every new day, Fenoglio's story was spinning a magic spell around her heart, sticky as spider's webs and enchantingly beautiful”

“Farid had brought an invisible guest with him.Fear.”

“Dustfinger closed his eyes and listened.He was home again.”

“He flung his arms around her neck, but only once he saw Silvertoungue's back was turned. He never knew with fathers. "I'll save him, Meggie!" he wispered in her ear. "I'll bring Dustfinger back. This story will have a happy ending.I swear!”

“He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her full on the mouth. His skin was wet with rain. When she didn't pull away, he took her face between his hands and kissed her again, on her forehead, on her nose, on her mouth once more. "You will come, won't you? Promisse!" he whispered.”

“Go back and rid the word of that book. Fill it with words before spring comes, or winter will never end for you. And I will take not only your life for the Adderhead's but your daughter's, too, because she helped you bind the book. Do you undersand, Bluejay"Why two?" asked Mo hoarsely. "How can you ask for two lives in return for one?”

“Beauty and fear make uneasy companions”

“When it came to hiding, even Gwin had nothing to teach Dustfinger. A strange sense of curiosity had always driven him to explore the hidden, forgotten corners of this and any other place, and all that knowledge had now come in useful.”

“The night swallowed him up like a thieving fox.”

“It's a good idea to have your own books with you in a strange place”

“Mortimer!" Orpheus produced a derisive smile, although with some difficulty. "Is your head buried so deep in your wine jug that you don't know what's going on in this world of yours? He's not doing any reading now. The bookbinder prefers to play the outlaw these days - the role you created especially for him.”

“Mo could paint pictures in the empty air with his voice alone.”

“The books in Mo and Meggie's house were stacked under tables, on chairs, in the corners of the rooms. There where books in the kitchen and books in the lavatory. Books on the TV set and in the closet, small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin, books old and new. They welcomed Meggie down to breakfast with invitingly opened pages; they kept boredom at bay when the weather was bad. And sometimes you fall over them.”

“Read – and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can't change it' - don't believe a word.”

“Sometimes, when you're so sad you don't know what to do, it helps to be angry.”

“Killing is easy," said Mo, "Dying is harder...”

“There was another reason [she] took her books whenever they went away. They were her home when she was somewhere strange. They were familiar voices, friends that never quarreled with her, clever, powerful friends -- daring and knowledgeable, tried and tested adventurers who had traveled far and wide. Her books cheered her up when she was sad and kept her from being bored.”

“She had only to open a door, nothing but a door between the words,just large enough for her and Farid to pass through....”

“The sea always filled her with longing, though for what she was never sure.”

“Words were useless. At times, they might sound wonderful, but they let you down the moment you really needed them. You could never find the right words, never, and where would you look for them? The heart is as silent as a fish, however much the tongue tries to give it a voice.”

“For a moment Dustfinger felt as if he had never been away- as if he had simply had a bad dream, and the memory of it had left a stale taste on his tongue,a shadow on his heart,nothing more.”

“Ketakutan membunuh segalanya. Akal, hati dan juga fantasi”

“Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.”

“In love - it sounded like a sickness without any cure, and wasn't that just how it sometimes felt?”

“This world,' she said. 'Do you really like it?'What a question! Farid never asked himself such things. He was glad to be with Dustfinger again and didn't mind where that was.It's a cruel world, don't you think?' Meggie went on. 'Mo often told me I forget how cruel it is too easily.'With his burned fingers, Farid stroke her fair hair. It shone even in the dark. 'They're all cruel,' he said. 'The world I come from, the world you come from, and this one, too. Maybe the people don't see the cruelty in your world right away, it's better hidden, but it's there all the same.”

“She had found him and was bringing back his thanks. Nor did she forget to mention that he had assured her that she was indeed the most beautiful fairy he had ever set eyes on.”

“I wish you luck,' she said, kissing him on the cheek. He still had the most beautiful eyes of any boy she'd ever seen. But now her heart beat so much faster for someone else.”

“A reader doesn't really see the characters in a story; he feels them.”

“Nothing chased nightmares away faster than the rustle of printed paper.”

“perhaps because this time not fear but love made him read.”

“You are crazy!" whispered Meggie. "You're a total lunatic!"But her opinion did not impress Fenoglio in the slightest. "So what? All writers are lunatics!”

“She always did like tales of adventure-stories full of brightness and darkness. She could tell you the names of all King Arthur's knights, and she knew everything about Beowulf and Grendel, the ancient gods and the not-quite-so-ancient heroes. She liked pirate stories, too, but most of all she loved books that had at least a knight or a dragon or a fairy in them. She was always on the dragon's side by the way.”

“Blue as the evening sky, blue as cranesbill flowers, blue as the lips of drowned men and the heart of a blaze burning with too hot a flame. Yes, sometimes it was hot in this world, too. Hot and cold, light and dark, terrible and beautiful, it was everything all at once. It wasn't true that you felt nothing in the land of Death. You felt and heard and smelled and saw, but your heart remained strangely calm, as if it were resting before the dance began again.Peace. Was that the word?”

“I prefer a story that has the good sense to stay on the page where it belongs.- Elinor”

“Cheeseface.”

“They wouldn't tell Scipio how much of the counterfeit cash was left since, as Riccio put it, 'You're a detective now, after all.”

“You know a great many things in dreams, often despite the evidence of your eyes. You just know them.”