Quotes from Cornelia Funke

with a leaf canopy spreading so wide that a whole troop of horsemen could shelter beneath it. The forests of the other world were so young, their trees still children. They had always made him feel old, so old that the years covered him like cobwebs. Here he was young again, just a child among the trees, not much older than the mushrooms growing among their roots, not much taller than the thistles and nettles.

I do not dare, I do not dare to write it, if you die. Pablo Neruda, "The Dead Woman," The Captain's Verses

My darling," she said at last, "are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?" "I don't mind at all," I said. "It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you." Roald Dahl, The Witches

But to the last question," Zelig replied, "he probably flew to beyond the Dark Regions, where people don't go and cattle don't stray, where the sky is copper, the earth iron, and where the evil forces live under roofs of petrified toadstools and in tunnels abandoned by moles." Isaac Bashevis Singer, Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus

Non c'è niente che sappia consolare meglio di qualche pagina ben scritta quando sei lontano da casa, vero?

O amor é uma armadilha muito eficiente, e a verdade mais cruel sobre a guerra é que ela o torna um risco mortal.

And the letters on the page tell us only as much as we'd see peering through a keyhole. Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on—developing and changing like our own world.

It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest; the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living. Sir David Attenborough

Sommige boeken proef je, andere verslind je, en slechts enkele kauw je, en verteer je helemaal.

Os mortais não entendem que a vida não é um livro que você fecha só depois de ler a última página. Não existe última página no Livro da Vida, pois a última é sempre a primeira página de outra história.

White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony.... White, Red, and Black, He said, wiping the blade clean on his sleeve. Snow white colors. That's what my brother use to call them. He liked that story a lot. But who would have thought they had such power.

Let him alone," said Merlin. "Perhaps he does not want to be friends with you until he knows what you are like. With owls, it is never easy-come and easy-go." T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone

Sai bene come finiscono gli eroi. Non hanno né mogli né figli, e non diventano vecchi.

so silent you could almost have forgotten he was there.

Le gustaría llevar una vida como ésa? ¿Ser la amante del zar, con su propio palacio, pero prisionera del amor? —En el amor siempre se es prisionero —las palabras le salieron de los labios como si las hubiera pronunciado miles de veces, pero ella ni siquiera sabía hasta ese momento que las pensaba

She spoke to the King, hoping he would forbid his son to go, but he said: "Well, dear, it's true that adventures are good for people even when they are very young. Adventures can get into a person's blood even if he doesn't remember having them." Eva Ibbotson, The Secret of Platform 13

The wrong words. They were true a hundred times over, yet they sounded like a lie. Hadn't he always known it? 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.

The reason there's no use looking," said Mr. Beaver, "is that we know already where he's gone!" Everyone stared in amazement. "Don't you understand?" said Mr. Beaver. "He's gone to her, to the White Witch. He has betrayed us all." C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

As I never saw my father or my mother … my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above" I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Resa stroked the dried flower-heads. 'They obey you,' she said to the Prince, when the women had gone again. 'Why?' 'Oh, because they've chosen me as their leader,' replied the Prince. 'And because I'm a very good knife-thrower.

Der Welpe hatte einfach eine Art, sich einem ins Herz zu stehlen, selbst wenn es aus Stein war.

Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.

If only it wasn't so difficult. It was far easier to believe in unhappiness than in happiness.

It was the middle of the night, and Bingo couldn't sleep. The ground was hard, but he was used to that… . His blanket was dirty and smelled disgusting, but he was used to that too. A tune kept going through his head, and he couldn't get it out of his mind. It was the Wendels' victory song. Michael de Larrabeiti, The Borribles Go for Broke