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I Think We Should Sometimes Read Stories Where Everything's Different From Our World, Don't You Agree? There's Nothing's Like It For Teaching Us To Wonder Why Trees Are Green And Not Red, And Why We Have Five Fingers Rather Than Six.' --spoken By The Bluejay, Aka Mo The Bookbinder, From 'inkdeath

-Cornelia Funke

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I Think We Should

Cornelia Funke

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I Think We Should Sometimes Read Stories Where Everything's Different From Our World, Don't You Agree? There's Nothing's Like It For Teaching Us To Wonder Why Trees Are Green And Not Red, And Why We Have Five Fingers Rather Than Six.' --spoken By The Bluejay, Aka Mo The Bookbinder, From 'inkdeath

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More From Cornelia Funke

Is There Anything In The World Better Than Words On The Page? Magic Signs, The Voices Of The Dead, Building Blocks To Make Wonderful Worlds Better Than This One, Comforters, Companions In Loneliness. Keepers Of Secrets, Speakers Of The Truth...all Those Glorious Words.

It's The Same In Real Life: Notorious Murderers Get Off Scot-free And Live Happily All Their Lives, While Good People Die - Sometimes The Very Best People. That's The Way Of The World.

Go Back And Rid The Word Of That Book. Fill It With Words Before Spring Comes, Or Winter Will Never End For You. And I Will Take Not Only Your Life For The Adderhead's But Your Daughter's, Too, Because She Helped You Bind The Book. Do You Undersand, Bluejay" Why Two?" Asked Mo Hoarsely. "how Can You Ask For Two Lives In Return For One?

All Books Are In Safe Hands With Me. They're My Children, My Inky Children, And I Look After Them Well. I Keep The Sunlight Away From Their Pages, I Dust And Protect Them From Hungry Hookworms And Grubby Human Fingers.

Ten Minutes Can Be A Long Time When You're Waiting With A Beating Heart For Something You Don't Understand, Something You Don't Really Want To Know.

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.

He Flung His Arms Around Her Neck, But Only Once He Saw Silvertoungue's Back Was Turned. He Never Knew With Fathers. "i'll Save Him, Meggie!" He Wispered In Her Ear. "i'll Bring Dustfinger Back. This Story Will Have A Happy Ending.i Swear!

So What? All Writers Are Lunatics!

Children Are Caterpillars And Adults Are Butterflies. No Butterfly Ever Remembers What It Felt Like Being A Caterpillar.

I'm Perfectly Happy To Know The World At Secondhand. It's A Lot Safer.

Why Would We Ever Want To Go Back When Your World Is So Accommodating With Your Telephones And Your Guns And What's That Sticky Stuff Called ...duct Tape.

My Wife Loves Written Words ... You Know, Words That Stick To Parchment And Paper Like Dead Flies, And It Seems My Father Felt The Same - But I Want To Hear Words! Remember That When You Are Looking For The Right Words: You Must Ask Yourself What They Sound Like! Glowing With Passion, Dark With Sorrow, Sweet With Love, That's What I Want. - Cosimo

We All Know What Fun It Can Be To Get Right Into A Book And Live There For A While, But Falling Out Of A Story And Suddenly Finding Yourself In This World Doesn't Seem To Be Much Fun At All.

Dustfinger Closed His Eyes And Listened. He Was Home Again.

I Just Did A Picture Book Called The Wildest Brother On Earth, And You Will Find Both Of My Children In There.

Are You Really Going To Catch Us And Take Us Back To Esther? We Don’t Belong To Her, You Know.” Embarrassed, Victor Stared At His Shoes. “well, Children All Have To Belong To Somebody,” He Muttered. “do You Belong To Someone?” “that’s Different.” “because You’re A Grown-up?

Because Fear Kills Everything," Mo Had Once Told Her. "your Mind, Your Heart, Your Imagination.

Her Curiosity Was Too Much For Her. She Felt Almost As If She Could Hear The Books Whispering On The Other Side Of The Half-open Door. They Were Promising Her A Thousand Unknown Stories, A Thousand Doors Into Worlds She Had Never Seen Before.

In Love - It Sounded Like A Sickness Without Any Cure, And Wasn't That Just How It Sometimes Felt?

Down There The Nights Are Bright And Nobody Believes In The Devil.

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?

My Dear Elinor, You Were Obviously Born Into The Wrong Story,” Said Dustfinger At Last.

Mortimer's Face Twisted When The Piper Pressed His Knife Against His Ribs. Oh Yes, He's Obviously Made The Wrong Enemies In This Story, Thought Orpheus. And The Wrong Friends. But That Was High-minded Heroes For You. Stupid.

Because By Now Elinor Had Understood This, Too: A Longing For Books Was Nothing Compared With What You Could Feel For Human Beings. The Books Told You About That Feeling. The Books Spoke Of Love, And It Was Wonderful To Listen To Them, But They Were No Substitute For Love Itself. They Couldn't Kiss Her Like Meggie, They Couldn't Hug Her Like Resa, They Couldn't Laugh Like Mortimer. Poor Books, Poor Elinor.

I Love To Read Aloud.

Words,words Filled The Night Like The Fragrance Of Invisible Flowers.

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.

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?

It Was Much Easier For Him Now That He Was Smaller To Negotiate His Way Through His Crammed Shop But He Still Tried To Swagger Past The Shelves Like He Used To In The Past. The Attempt Looked So Strange That Scipio Started To Mimic Him Behind His Back. "what's The Silly Giggling About?" Barbarossa Asked When Prosper And Renzo Bust Out Laughing.

The Sea Always Filled Her With Longing, Though For What She Was Never Sure.

Thats Beautiful! Sad And Beautiful," Murmured Meggie. Why Were Sad Stories Often So Beautiful? It Was Different In Real Life.

Everyone Is Small At Night.

It's A Cruel World, Don't You Think?

Isn't It Odd How Much Fatter A Book Gets When You've Read It Several Times?" Mo Had Said..."as If Something Were Left Between The Pages Every Time You Read It. Feelings, Thoughts, Sounds, Smells...and Then, When You Look At The Book Again Many Years Later, You Find Yourself There, Too, A Slightly Younger Self, Slightly Different, As If The Book Had Preserved You Like A Pressed Flower...both Strange And Familiar.

Believe, Believe, Believe

Nothing Is More Frightening Than A Fear You Cannot Name.

And My Father Always Took Me To The Library. We Were Both Book Addicts.

The Fairy's Dress Rustled As She Turned. Human Women Dressed Like Flowers, Layers Of Petals Around A Mortal, Rotting Core.

Don't Let It Worry You, Not Being Able To Speak,'dustfinger Had Often Told Her. 'people Tend Not To Listen Anyway, Right?

Hey, Don't Take This The Wrong Way, But Don't Come Back, Ok?

Sometimes Dustfinger Thought Basta's Constant Fear Of Curses And Sudden Disaster Probably Arose From His Terror Of The Darkness Within Himself, Which Made Him Assume That The Rest Of The World Must Be Exactly The Same.

Darkness Within

I Don't Like To Eat The Same Dish Every Day, So I Read Very Different Things.

Different Things

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.

What A Plague Love Is!

What's That Sticky Stuff Called? Basta: Duct Tape. Yes, Duct Tape. I Love Duct Tape.

And I Always Read The English Translation And Always Have Conversations With My Translator, For Example About The Names. I Always Have To Approve It.

They're All Cruel,' He Said. 'the World I Come From, The World You Come From, And This One, Too. Maybe The People Don't See The Cruelty In Your World Right Away, It's Better Hidden, But It's There All The Same.

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!

Meggie Folchart: Having Writer's Block? Maybe I Can Help. Fenoglio: Oh Yes, That's Right. You Want To Be A Writer, Don't You? Meggie Folchart: You Say That As If It's A Bad Thing. Fenoglio: Oh No, It's Just A Lonely Thing. Sometimes The World You Create On The Page Seems More Friendly And Alive Than The World You Actually Live In.

Nobody Loves Only Once.

He Wants To Be Grown-up. How Different Dreams Can Be! Nature Will Soon Grant Your Wish.

When It Came To Hiding, Even Gwin Had Nothing To Teach Dustfinger. A Strange Sense Of Curiosity Had Always Driven Him To Explore The Hidden, Forgotten Corners Of This And Any Other Place, And All That Knowledge Had Now Come In Useful.

This Book Taught Me, Once And For All, How Easily You Can Escape This World With The Help Of Words! You Can Find Friends Between The Pages Of A Book, Wonderful Friends.

Wonderful Friends

I Prefer A Story That Has The Good Sense To Stay On The Page Where It Belongs. - Elinor

Children, They're The Same Everywhere. Greedy Little Creatures But The Best Listeners In The World - Any World. The Very Best Of All.

There Are Not So Many Mythical Creatures From Inkheart.

Mythical Creatures

Blue As The Evening Sky, Blue As Cranesbill Flowers, Blue As The Lips Of Drowned Men And The Heart Of A Blaze Burning With Too Hot A Flame. Yes, Sometimes It Was Hot In This World, Too. Hot And Cold, Light And Dark, Terrible And Beautiful, It Was Everything All At Once. It Wasn't True That You Felt Nothing In The Land Of Death. You Felt And Heard And Smelled And Saw, But Your Heart Remained Strangely Calm, As If It Were Resting Before The Dance Began Again. Peace. Was That The Word?

Hope. Nothing Is More Intoxicating.

Read – And Be Curious. And If Somebody Says To You: 'things Are This Way. You Can't Change It' - Don't Believe A Word.

I Love To Read, I Love To Watch Movies, And I Love To Be With My Children.

Power. Intoxicating. Like A Fine Wine.

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’s 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.

Beauty And Fear Make Uneasy Companions

Only In Books Could You Find Pity, Comfort, Happiness And Love.

Happiness And Love

Let's Run Away To Venice, And Hide Out In An Old Movie Theater. We Can Dye Our Hair Blonde, So No One Will Ever Find Us!

Books Are Like Flypaper, Memories Cling To The Printed Pages Better Than Anything Else.

The Truth's Not Pretty Of Course. No One Likes To Look It In The Face.

Stories Never Really End...even If The Books Like To Pretend They Do. Stories Always Go On. They Don't End On The Last Page, Any More Than They Begin On The First Page.

She Pressed Her Hand Against Her Chest. No Heart. So Where Did The Love She Felt Come From?

What's The Matter Princess? Do You Know The End Of Your Story?

You Really Don't Understand The First Thing About Writing...for One Thing, Early In The Morning Is The Worst Possible Time. The Brain Is Like A Wet Sponge At That Hour. And For Another, Real Writing Is A Question Of Staring Into Space And Waiting For The Right Ideas.

She Had Found Him And Was Bringing Back His Thanks. Nor Did She Forget To Mention That He Had Assured Her That She Was Indeed The Most Beautiful Fairy He Had Ever Set Eyes On.

So It's Happened, I Kept Thinking, You're In The Middle Of A Story Exactly As You've Always Wanted, And It's Horrible. Fear Tastes Quite Different When You're Not Just Reading About It, Meggie, And Playing Hero Wasn't Half As Much Fun As I'd Expected.

Farid Had Brought An Invisible Guest With Him. Fear.

Fire And Water," He Said, "don't Really Mix. You Could Say They're Incompatible. But When They Do Love Each Other, They Love Passionately.

And I Plan To Write A Sequel To Dragon Rider.

Neither Goyl Nor Men Lived Long Enough To Understand That Yesterday Was Born Of Tomorrow, Just As Tomorrow Was Born Of Yesterday.

You Know What They Say: When People Start Burning Books They'll Soon Burn Human Beings.

She Had Only To Open A Door, Nothing But A Door Between The Words,just Large Enough For Her And Farid To Pass Through.

He Longed For The Deep As She Longed For The Night Sky And For White Lilies Floating On Water -- Although She Still Tried To Convince Herself That Love Alone Could Feed Her Soul.

What Are Stories For If We Don't Learn From Them?

When You Open A Book It's Like Going To The Theater First You See The Curtain Then It Is Pulled Aside And The Show Begins.

If You Take A Book With You On A Journey," Mo Had Said When He Put The First One In Her Box, "an Odd Thing Happens: The Book Begins Collecting Your Memories. And Forever After You Have Only To Open That Book To Be Back Where You First Read It. It Will All Come Into Your Mind With The Very First Words: The Sights You Saw In That Place, What It Smelled Like, The Ice Cream You Ate While You Were Reading It... Yes, Books Are Like Flypaper—memories Cling To The Printed Page Better Than Anything Else.

I Like A Composer Called Henry Purcell, And I Love To Listen To Neil Young.

A Library Book, I Imagine, Is A Happy Book.

Thought Provoking

Every Reader Knows About The Feeling That Characters In Books Seem More Real Than Real People.

The Night Breathed Through The Apartment Like A Dark Animal. The Ticking Of A Clock. The Groan Of A Floorboard As He Slipped Out Of His Room. All Was Drowned By Its Silence. But Jacob Loved The Night. He Felt It On His Skin Like A Promise. Like A Cloak Woven From Freedom And Danger.

Didn't Books Say That Too: That There Is Always Price To Pay For Happiness?

There Was Another Reason [she] Took Her Books Whenever They Went Away. They Were Her Home When She Was Somewhere Strange. They Were Familiar Voices, Friends That Never Quarreled With Her, Clever, Powerful Friends -- Daring And Knowledgeable, Tried And Tested Adventurers Who Had Traveled Far And Wide. Her Books Cheered Her Up When She Was Sad And Kept Her From Being Bored.

Second, There Are So Many Magical Places In Books That You Cant Go To, Like Hogwarts And Middle Earth, So I Wanted To Set A Story In A Place Where Children Can Actually Go.

I Always Wanted To Ride A Dragon Myself, So I Decided To Do This For A Year In My Imagination.

I Think We Should Sometimes Read Stories Where Everything's Different From Our World, Don't You Agree? There's Nothing's Like It For Teaching Us To Wonder Why Trees Are Green And Not Red, And Why We Have Five Fingers Rather Than Six.' --spoken By The Bluejay, Aka Mo The Bookbinder, From 'inkdeath

We're All Liars When It Serves Our Purpose.

You Can Not Fully Read A Book Without Being Alone. But Through This Very Solitude You Become Intimately Involved With People Whom You Might Never Have Met Otherwise, Either Because They Have Been Dead For Centuries Or Because They Spoke Languages You Cannot Understand. And, Nonetheless, They Have Become Your Closest Friends, Your Wisest Advisors, The Wizards That Hypnotize You, The Lovers You Have Always Dreamed Of. -antonio Munoz Molinas, "the Power Of The Pen

My Children Were All Made From Paper And Printer's Ink.

Yes, I Do Enjoy Walking At Night. The World’s More To My Liking Then, Not So Loud, Not So Fast, Not So Crowded, And A Good Deal More Mysterious.

The Heart Was A Weak, Changeable Thing, Bent On Nothing But Love, And There Could Be No More Fatal Mistake Than To Make It Your Master. Reason Must Be In Charge. It Comforted You For The Heart's Foolishness, It Sang Mocking Songs About Love, Derided It As A Whim Of Nature, Transient As Flowers. So Why Did She Still Keep Following Her Heart?

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.

Everything Gets To Me. I'm Very Sentimental.

The World Was A Terrible Place, Cruel, Pitiless, Dark As A Bad Dream. Not A Good Place To Live. Only In Books Could You Find Pity, Comfort, Happiness - And Love. Books Loved Anyone Who Opened Them, They Gave You Security And Friendship And Didn't Ask Anything In Return; They Never Went Away, Never, Not Even When You Treated Them Badly.

Since When Does The Butterfly Ask About The Caterpillar?

Why Did Death Make Life Taste So Much Sweeter? Why Could The Heart Love Only What It Could Also Lose?

Nothing Is More Terrifying Than Fearlessness.

My Daughter, Anna, Is Almost 15, And My Son, Ben, Is Almost 10.

Quite Suddenly Meggie Felt Fear Rise In Her Like Black Brackish Water, She Felt Lost, Terribly Lost, She Felt It In Every Part Of Her. She Didn't Belong Here! What Had She Done?

Every German Child Learns To Speak English In School.

Reality Is A Fragile Thing.

It's A Good Idea To Have Your Own Books With You In A Strange Place

Let's Be Off Before He Gets His Great Horsey Teeth Into My Poor Lines Of Verse!

He Put His Hands On Her Shoulders And Kissed Her Full On The Mouth. His Skin Was Wet With Rain. When She Didn't Pull Away, He Took Her Face Between His Hands And Kissed Her Again, On Her Forehead, On Her Nose, On Her Mouth Once More. "you Will Come, Won't You? Promisse!" He Whispered.

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.

Believe Me. Sometimes When Life Looks To Be At Its Grimmest, There's A Light Hidden At The Heart Of Things. Clive Barker, Abarat

The Night Swallowed Him Up Like A Thieving Fox.

A Thousand Enemies Outside The House Are Better Than One Within. Arab Proverb

Accursed, Blasted, Heartless Things [books]! Full Of Empty Promises, Full Of False Lures, Always Making You Hungry, Never Satisfying You, Never!

The Tent In Which She First Met Him Had Smelled Of Blood, Of The Death She Did Not Understand, And Still She Had Thought Of It All As A Game. She Had Promised Him The World. His Flesh In The Flesh Of His Enemies. And Much Too Late Had She Realized What He Had Sown In Her. Love. Worst Of All Poisons.

I Wish I Had More Time To Visit Schools.

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.

I Always Thought It Hadn't Influenced Me Very Much, But I Heard From Many People From England That Many Motives From German Fairytales Are To Be Found In My Books.

Sometimes, When You're So Sad You Don't Know What To Do, It Helps To Be Angry.

Where Did The Love Come From? What Was It Made Of?

Killing Is Easy," Said Mo, "dying Is Harder.

My Son Always Says I Like Very Weird Music.

When The Heart Craved Something So Forcefully, Then Reason Became Nothing But Helpless Observer.

-you Forgot Something Important! -what? -it's Under My Sweater! -what?! -me!

From The Tower Battlements, Dustfinger Looked Down On A Lake As Black As Night, Where The Reflection Of The Castle Swam In A Sea Of Stars. The Wind Passing Over His Unscarred Face Was Cold From The Snow Of The Surrounding Mountains, And Dustfinger Relished Life As If He Were Tasting It For The First Time. The Longing It Brought, And The Desire. All The Bitterness, All The Sweetness, Even If It Was Only For A While, Never For More Than A While, Everything Gained And Lost, Lost And Found Again.

Books Have To Be Heavy Because The Whole World's Inside Them.

I Live In Hamburg; That's In The North. And I Live On The Outskirts Of Town. It Looks Like Countryside.

I Remember The Feeling. Whenever My Father Got So Absorbed In A Book That We Might Have Been In Visible I Felt Like Taking A Pair Of Scissors And Cutting It Up.

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.

My Grandmother Told Stories; She Was Very Good At That.

They Wouldn't Tell Scipio How Much Of The Counterfeit Cash Was Left Since, As Riccio Put It, 'you're A Detective Now, After All.

So Mo Began Filling The Silence With Words. He Lured Them Out Of The Pages As If They Had Only Been Waiting For His Voice, Words Long And Short, Words Sharp And Soft, Cooing, Purring Words. They Danced Through The Room, Painting Stained Glass Pictures, Tickling The Skin. Even When Meggie Nodded Off She Could Still Hear Them, Although Mo Had Closed The Book Long Ago. Words That Explained The World To Her, Its Dark Side And Its Light Side, Words That Built A Wall To Keep Out Bad Dreams. And Not A Single Bad Dream Came Over That Wall For The Rest Of The Night.

Mo Could Paint Pictures In The Empty Air With His Voice Alone.

You Know A Great Many Things In Dreams, Often Despite The Evidence Of Your Eyes. You Just Know Them.

I Like To Visit My Horse, Have A Walk With My Dog.

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.

What Was A Slap For Ten Pages Of Escapism, Ten Pages Far From Everything That Made Him Unhappy, Ten Pages Of Real Life Instead Of The Monotony That Other People Called The Real World?

I Pledge To Set Out To Live A Thousand Lives Between Printed Pages. I Pledge To Use Books As Doors To Other Minds, Old And Young, Girl And Boy, Man And Animal. I Pledge To Use Books To Open Windows To A Thousand Different Worlds And To The Thousand Different Faces Of My Own World. I Pledge To Use Books To Make My Universe Spread Much Wider Than The World I Live In Every Day. I Pledge To Treat My Books Like Friends, Visiting Them All From Time To Time And Keeping Them Close.

If I Was A Book, I Would Like To Be A Library Book, So I Would Be Taken Home By All Different Sorts Of Kids.

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.

Perhaps There's Another, Much Larger Story Behind The Printed One, A Story That Changes Just As Our Own World Does. 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.

The Night Belongs To Beasts Of Prey, And Always Has. It's Easy To Forget That When You're Indoors, Protected By Light And Solid Walls.

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

A Reader Doesn't Really See The Characters In A Story; He Feels Them.

There Could Be Few Men Whose Love For A Woman Had Been Written On His Face With A Knife.

Dustfinger Still Clearly Remembered The Feeling Of Being In Love For The First Time. How Vulnerable His Heart Had Suddenly Been! Such A Trembling, Quivering Thing, Happy And Miserably Unhappy At Once.

If You Keep Pretending You're In That Book, It Will Make You Not Want To Live In The Life You're In.

Perhaps Because This Time Not Fear But Love Made Him Read.

Desperate? So What? I'm Desperate, Too!" Fenoglio Snapped At Her. "my Story Is Foundering In Misfortune, And These Hands Here," He Said Holding Them Out To Her, "don't Want To Write Anymore! I'm Afraid Of Words Meggie! 'once They Were Like Honey, Now They're Poison, Pure Poison! But What Is A Writer Who Doesn't Love Words Anymore? What Have I Come To? This Story Is Devouring Me, Crushing Me, And I'm It's Creator!

Memories, So Sweet And Bitter.. They Had Both Nourished And Devoured Him For So Many Years. Until A Time Came When They Began To Fade, Turning Faint And Blurred, Only An Ache To Be Quickly Pushed Away Because It Went To Your Heart. For What Was The Use Of Remembering All You Had Lost?

Nothing Chased Nightmares Away Faster Than The Rustle Of Printed Paper.

Many [book] Even Lay Flat In The Floor Open. Their Spines Upward. Elinor Couldn't Bear To Look! Didn't The Monster Know That Was The Way To Break A Book's Neck?

The Book She Had Been Reading Was Under Her Pillow, Pressing Its Cover Against Her Ear As If To Lure Her Back Into Its Printed Pages.

A Book Always Keeps Something Of Its Owner Between Its Pages.

The Books In Mo And Meggie's House Were Stacked Under Tables, On Chairs, In The Corners Of The Rooms. There Where Books In The Kitchen And Books In The Lavatory. Books On The Tv Set And In The Closet, Small Piles Of Books, Tall Piles Of Books, Books Thick And Thin, Books Old And New. They Welcomed Meggie Down To Breakfast With Invitingly Opened Pages; They Kept Boredom At Bay When The Weather Was Bad. And Sometimes You Fall Over Them.

Isn't It Odd How Much Fatter A Book Gets When You've Read It Several Times?

She Always Did Like Tales Of Adventure-stories Full Of Brightness And Darkness. She Could Tell You The Names Of All King Arthur's Knights, And She Knew Everything About Beowulf And Grendel, The Ancient Gods And The Not-quite-so-ancient Heroes. She Liked Pirate Stories, Too, But Most Of All She Loved Books That Had At Least A Knight Or A Dragon Or A Fairy In Them. She Was Always On The Dragon's Side By The Way.

But After All, The Villains Are The Salt In The Soup Of A Story.

Why Could She Remember Nothing But Stories Of Frightened People When Capricorn Looked At Her? She Usually Found It So Easy To Escape Somewhere Else, To Get Right Inside The Minds Of People And Animals Who Existed Only On Paper, So Why Not Now? Because She Was Afraid. "because Fear Kills Everything," Mo Had Once Told Her. "your Mind, Your Heart, Your Imagination.

I Will Try To Write Books Until I Drop Dead.

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.

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.

Sometimes It's A Good Thing We Don't Remember Things Half As Well As Books Do.

How Fast The Ears Learned To Tell What Sounds Meant, Much Faster Than It Took The Eyes To Decipher Written Words.

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?

I Wish You Luck,' She Said, Kissing Him On The Cheek. He Still Had The Most Beautiful Eyes Of Any Boy She'd Ever Seen. But Now Her Heart Beat So Much Faster For Someone Else.

I Have Two Iceland Horses, A Very Hairy Dog Called Looney, And A Guinea Pig.

Writing Stories Is A Kind Of Magic, Too.

What On Earth Have You Packed In Here? Bricks?" Asked Mo As He Carried Meggie's Book-box Out Of The House. You're The One Who Says Books Have To Be Heavy Because The Whole World's Inside Them," Said Meggie.

This World,' She Said. 'do You Really Like It?' What A Question! Farid Never Asked Himself Such Things. He Was Glad To Be With Dustfinger Again And Didn't Mind Where That Was. It's A Cruel World, Don't You Think?' Meggie Went On. 'mo Often Told Me I Forget How Cruel It Is Too Easily.' With His Burned Fingers, Farid Stroke Her Fair Hair. It Shone Even In The Dark. 'they're All Cruel,' He Said. 'the World I Come From, The World You Come From, And This One, Too. Maybe The People Don't See The Cruelty In Your World Right Away, It's Better Hidden, But It's There All The Same.

The Spoken Word Is Nothing. It Hardly Lives Longer Than An Insect! Only The Written Word Is Eternal. - Balbulus

Who Are You?' Mo Looked At The White Women. Then He Looked At Dustfinger's Still Face. Guess.' The Bird Ruffled Up Its Golden Feathers, And Mo Saw That The Mark On Its Breast Was Blood. You Are Death.' Mo Felt The Word Heavy On His Tongue. Could Any Word Be Heavier?

Words Are Immortal - Elinor

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