Quotes from Cornelia Funke

Yes,' she whispered. 'He was more worried about the book than me.

No, it wasn't quite true that John had no conscience at all. Everyone had one. But there were many voices in his head that had an easier time reaching him: his ambition, his desire for fame and success—and for revenge.

Perhaps she was more like him than he'd thought: Her home, too, had consisted of paper and printer's ink. She probably felt as lost as he did in the real world.

Perhaps, after all, this world was made of dreams, and an old man had merely found the words for them.

It hadn't been easy to reach the city where Jacob had grown up. The borders in his world were more tightly guarded than the island of the Fairies.

For far too long she'd made herself small, made herself fit into their world.

First he sees her only in his dreams. Skin as white as moonlight. Eyes like water drowning you. Hair like spider webs. Fairy.

Fox squeezed past him, feeling his warmth like a home.

Worte taugen nichts. Ja, manchmal klangen sie wunderbar, aber sie liessen einen im Stich, sobald man sie wirklich brauchte. Nie fand man die richtigen, niemals, aber wo sollte man auch nach ihnen suchen? Das Herz ist stumm wie ein Fish, auch wenn die Zunge sich noch so viel Muehe gibt, ihm eine Stimme zu geben.

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

Death has white hounds.

And the pain was back again, and time, and longing too.

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

Sometimes we think we know people at first sight," he said. "As though we'd met them a hundred times before, in another life, in another world. And then we realize that we know nothing. How did they look as children? What dreams startle them from their sleep?

It was like a promise that wishes could come true, that desire might lead to more than yearning.

No prince had lived in those wretched hovels, no red-robed bishops, only farmers and laborers whose stories no one had written down, and now they were lost, buried under wild thyme and fast growing spurge.

Geschichten haben nie ein Ende, Meggie«, hatte er mal zu ihr gesagt, »auch wenn uns die Bücher das gern vorgaukeln. Die Geschichten gehen immer weiter, sie enden ebenso wenig mit der letzten Seite, wie sie mit der ersten beginnen.«

I know why you're here ... This world doesn't frighten you half as much as the other one. You have nothing and nobody to lose here. Except Fox, and she clearly worries more about you than you do about her. You've left all that could frighten you in the other world. But then Will came here and brought it all with him.

Time is a horse that runs in the heart, a horse Without a rider on a road at night. The mind sits listening and hears it pass.

Nichts verscheuchte böse Träume schneller als das Rascheln von bedrucktem Papier.

And this time he would have said it, right? I love you. So much. Too much. But that was forbidden. For all time. The Elf would take his heart in payment.

Can't you imagine? Haven't you told her about the place enough?" He tried the handle again, as if that could change anything. Meggie had covered the whole door with quotations. They looked to him now like magic spells written on the white paint in childish hand. Take me to another world! Go on! I know you can do it. My father has shown me how. Odd that your heart didn't simply stop when it hurt so much.

A child in the woods. A child with an army.

Look. (Grown-ups skip this paragraph.) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending, I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming. William Goldman, The Princess Bride