Cornelia Funke

He wants to be grown-up. How different dreams can be! Nature will soon grant your wish.

You know, it's a funny thing about writers. Most people don't stop to think of books being written by people much like themselves. They think that writers are all dead long ago--they don't expect to meet them in the street or out shopping. They know their stories but not their names, and certainly not their faces. And most writers like it that way.

Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?

Meggie thought this first whisper sounded a little different from one book to another, depending on weather or not she already knew the story it was going to tell her.

For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to this agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for

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

It was a chilly morning after the night's rain, and the sun hung in the sky like a pale coin lost by someone high up in the clouds.

She felt as if the grave stones were whispering those names to her as she walked past... Those stones that bore no names seemed like closed mouths, sad mouths that forgotten how to speak. But perhaps the dead didn't mind what their names had once been?

He hablado ex profeso con el viento -anunció-, pues hay una cosa que debes saber: cuando el viento se obstina en jugar con el fuego, ni yo mismo puedo domeñarlo. Pero me ha dado su palabra de honor de que esta noche se mantendrá en calma y no nos estropeará la diversión.

What was she hoping to gain from his death? That it would numb the pain of his betrayal, or heal her injured pride? Her red sister didn't know much about love.

Secrets... nothing eats away at love faster.

Night was fading over the fields as if the rain had washed the darkness out of the hem of its garment.

That bloody bastard! That thrice accursed son of a bitch!

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

Elinor had read countless stories in which the main characters fell sick at some point because they were so unhappy. She had always thought that a very romantic idea, but she__ dismissed it as a pure invention of the world of books. All those wilting heroes and heroines who suddenly gave up the ghost just because of unrequited love or longing for something they__ lost! Elinor had always enjoyed their sufferings__s a reader will. After all, that was what you wanted from books: great emotions you__ never felt yourself, pain you could leave behind by closing the book if it got too bad. Death and destruction felt deliciously real conjured up with the right words, and you could leave them behind between the pages as you pleased, at no cost or risk to yourself.

And there stood Basta with his foot already on another dead body, smiling. Why not? He had hit his target, and it was the target he had been aiming for all along: Dustfinger__ heart, his stupid heart. It broke in two as he held Farid in his arms, it simply broke in two, although he had taken such good care of it all these years.

Women were different, no doubt about it. Men broke so much more quickly. Grief didn't break women. Instead it wore them down, it hollowed them out very slowly.

I will try to write books until I drop dead.