Quotes from Cornelia Funke

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

Life was more difficult in Inkheart, yet it seemed to Meggie that with every new day Fenoglio's story was spinning a magic spell around her heart, sticky as a spider's web and enchantingly beautiful..

Dustfinger inspected his reddened fingers and felt the taut skin. 'He might tell me how my story ends,' he murmured. Meggie looked at him in astonishment. 'You mean you don't know?' Dustfinger smiled. Meggie still didn't particularly like his smile. It seemed to appear only to hide something else. 'What's so unusual about that, princess?' he asked quietly. 'Do you know how your story ends?' Meggie had no answer for that.

She is a real bookworm. I think she lives on print. Her whole house is full of books - looks as if she likes them better than human company.

Weren't all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!

Some books should be tasted,some devoured but only few should be chewed and digested thouroughly

Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?

She read and read and read, but she was stuffing herself with the letters on the page like an unhappy child stuffing itself with chocolate. They didn't taste bad, but she was still unhappy.

Sometimes, when you're sad you don't know what to do, it helps to be angry. But then the tears come back again all the same, and you fall asleep with the salty taste of them on your lips.

You forgot something important! -What? -It's under my sweater! -WHAT?! -Me!

Every book should begin with attractive endpapers. Preferably in a dark colour: dark red or dark blue, depending on the binding. When you open the book it's like going to the theatre. First you see the curtain. Then it's pulled aside and the show begins.

What are stories for if we don't learn from them?

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!

Down there the nights are bright and nobody believes in the Devil.

The truth's not pretty of course. No one likes to look it in the face.

Please, she whispered as she opened the book, please get me out of here just for an hour or so, please take me far, far away

The night swallowed him up like a thieving fox.

Didn't books say that too: that there is always price to pay for happiness?

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

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

We're all liars when it serves our purpose.

The spoken word is nothing. It hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal. - Balbulus

She wanted to return to her dream. Perhaps it was still somewhere there behind her closed eyelids. Perhaps a little of its happiness still clung like gold dust to her lashes. Don't dreams in fairy tales sometimes leave a token behind?

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