“Fictions are merely frozen dreams, linked images with some semblance of structure. They are not to be trusted, no more than the people who create them.”

“Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken-and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.”

“There are people who think that things that happen in fiction do not really happen. These people are wrong.”

“People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.”

“Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.”

“Television and cinema were all very well, but these stories happened to other people. The stories I found in books happened inside my head. I was, in some way, there.It's the magic of fiction: you take the words and you build them into worlds.”

“Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. (from 'Instructions')”