Michael Ende Quotes

You see, Momo ... it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept ... And then you hurry. You work faster and faster, and every time you look up there seems to be just as much to sweep as before, and you try even harder ... , and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop-and still the street stretches away in from of you.

People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming ever poorer, bleaker and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them any more. But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had.

All dwelling in one house are strange brothers three,
as unlike as any three brothers could be,
yet try as you may to tell brother from brother,
you'll find that the trio resemble each other.
The first isn't there, though he'll come beyond doubt.
The second's departed, so he's not about.
The third and the smallest is right on the spot,
and manage without him the others could not.
Yet the third is a factor with which to be reckoned
because the first brother turns into the second.
You cannot stand back and observe number three,
for one of the others is all you will see.
So tell me, my child, are the three of them one?
Or are there but two? Or could there be none?
Just name them, and you will at once realize
that each rules a kingdom of infinite size.
They rule it together and are it as well.
In that, they're alike, so where, do they dwell?

The professor smiled. "If people knew the nature of death," he said after a moment's silence,
"they'd cease to be afraid of it. And if they ceased to be afraid of it, no one could rob them of their time any more.

No," he said in his deep, rumbling voice. "It means that you must do what you really and truly want. And nothing is more difficult."
"What I really and truly want? What do you mean by that?"
"It's your own deepest secret and you yourself don't know it."
"How can I find out?"
"By going the way of your wishes, from one to another, from first to last. It will take you to what you really and truly want."
"That doesn't sound so hard," said Bastian.
"It is the most dangerous of all journeys."
"Why?" Bastian asked. "I'm not afraid."
"That isn't it," Grograman rumbled. "It requires the greatest honesty and vigilance, because there's no other journey on which it's so easy to lose yourself forever.

You wish for something, you've wanted it for years, and you're sure you want it, as long as you know you can't have it. But if all at once it looks as though your wish might come true, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had never wished for any such thing.

And if someone felt that his life had been an utter failure, and that he himself was only one among millions of wholly unimportant people who could be replaced as easily as broken windowpanes, he would go and pour out his heart to Momo. And, even as he spoke, he would come to realize by some mysterious means that he was absolutely wrong: that there was only one person like himself in the whole world, and that, consequently, he mattered to the world in his own particular way.
Such was Momo's talent for listening.

Wishes cannot be summoned up or kept away at will. They come from deeper within us than good or bad intentions. And they spring up unannounced.

You see, Momo,' he [Beppo Roadsweeper] told her one day, 'it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept.'
He gazed silently into space before continuing. 'And then you start to hurry,' he went on. 'You work faster and faster, and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop - and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.'
He pondered a while. Then he said, 'You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.'
Again he paused for thought before adding, 'That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.'
There was another long silence. At last he went on, 'And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. What's more, you aren't out of breath.' He nodded to himself. 'That's important, too,' he concluded.

AURYN gives you great power … but you must not make use of it. For the Childlike Empress herself never makes use of her power. AURYN will protect you and guide you, but whatever comes your way you must never interfere, because from this moment on your own opinion ceases to count. For that same reason you must go unarmed. You must let what happens happen. Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise, just as it is in the eyes of the Childlike Empress. You may only search and inquire, never judge. Always remember that, Atreyu!

What's so clever about working hard ?" he said to Momo. "Anyone can get rich quick that way, but who wants to look like the people who've sold themselves body and soul for money's sake ? Well, they can count me out. Even if there are times when I don't have the price of a cup of coffee, I'm still me. Guido's still Guido!

There are people who can never go to Fantastica," said Mr. Coreander, "and others who can, but who stay there forever. And there are just a few who fo to fantastica and come back. Like you. And they make both world well again.

When you know as much as we do, nothing matters.

Just as the setting sun turned the clouds to liquid gold.

What do you suppose it means?' he asked. ' "Do what you wish." That must mean I can do anything I feel like. Don't you think so?
All at once Grograman's face looked alarmingly grave, and his eyes glowed.
'No,' he said in his deep rumbling voice. 'It means that you must do what you really and truly want. And nothing is more difficult.' ... 'It's your own deepest secret and you don't know it.'
'How can I find out?'
'By going the way of your wishes, fro one to another, from first to last. It will take you to what you really and truly want.'
'That doesn't sound so hard,' said Bastian.
'It is the most dangerous of all journeys.'
'Why? Bastian asked. 'I'm not afraid.'
'That isn't it,' Grograman rumbled. 'It requires the greatest honesty and vigilance, because there's no other journey on which it's so easy to lose yourself forever.'
'Do you mean because our wishes aren't always good?' Bastian asked.
The lion lashed the sand he was lying on with his tail. His ears lay flat, he screwed up his nose, and his eyes flashed fire. Involuntarily Bastian ducked when Grograman's voice once again made the earth tremble: 'What do you know about wishes? How would you know what's good and what isn't?' In the days that followed Bastian thought a good deal about what the Many-Colored Death had said. There are some things, however, that we cannot fathom by thinking about them, but only by experience.

It was a wonderful feeling, a sense of release and boundless freedom that he had never known before. He was beyond the reach of all the things that had weighed him down and hemmed him in.

All the games were selected for them by supervisors and had to have some useful, educational purpose. The children learned these new games but unlearned something else in the process: they forgot to be happy, how to take pleasure in little things and last, but not least, how to dream

For a while Bastian stood motionless. He was so stunned by what he had just heard that he couldn't decide what to do ... What he had hoped was his ruin and what he had feared his salvation.

It's asking us our names," Falkor reported.
"I'm Atreyu!" Atreyu cried.
"I'm Falkor!" cried Falkor.
The boy without a name was silent.
Atreyu looked at him, then took him by the hand and cried: "He's Bastian Balthazar Bux!"
"It asks," Falkor translated, "why he doesn't speak for himself."
"He can't," said Atreyu. "He has forgotten everything."
Falkor listened again to the roaring of the fountain.
"Without memory, it says, he cannot come in. The snakes won't let him through."
Atreyu replied: "I have stored up everything he told us about himself and his world. I vouch for him."
Falkor listened.
"It wants to know by what right?"
"I am his friend," said Atreyu.

He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest - he had seen beautiful things and horrible things - but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.

With them the individual counted for nothing. No one was irreplaceable, because they drew no distinction between one man and another... In this community there was harmony, but no love.

But there was another thing Momo couldn't quite understand - a thing that hadn't happened until very recently. More and more often these days, children turned up with all kinds of toys you couldn't really play with: remote-controlled tanks that trundled to and fro but did little else, or space rockets that whizzed around on strings but go nowhere, or model robots that waddled along with eyes flashing and heads swiveling but that was all.

Give up", groaned Mauricio, "or else you are a dead duck!"
"You give up first," coughed Jacob, "or else I'll snip your tail off!'
And then both let go at the same time and sat facing each other, all out of breath. With tears in his eyes the little cat tried to straighten out his tail, which no longer looked elegant in the least but had been bent into a zigzag, while the melancholy raven eyed the feathers scattered on the floor, feathers he couldn't really spare. But as is often the case after such bickering, both felt relatively peaceful and ready for reconciliation. Jacob thought he should not have been so rude to the small, fat tomcat, and Maurizio wondered if he might have done something wrong with the poor, unfortunate raven. "Forgive me, please," he mewed. "I'm sorry, too," rasped Jacob.

You ask me what you will be there. But what are you here? What are you creatures of Fantastica? Dreams, poetic inventions, characters in a neverending story. Do you think you're real? Well yes, here in your world you are. But when you been through the Nothing, you won't be real anymore. You'll be unrecognizable. And you will be in another world. In that world, you Fantasticans won't be anything like yourselves. You will bring delusion and madness into the human world.

But time is life, and life exists in our hearts, and the more of it that the people saved, the less they actually had.

Oh, nothing can happen more than once, but all things must happen one day.

He was handsome and strong, but somehow that wasn't enough for him. He also felt the need to be tough and inured to hardship... But how was he to come by that quality in this luminous garden, where all manner of fruit was to be had for the picking?

Your life is short, son. Ours is long. Much too long. But we both live in time. You a short time. We a long time. The Childlike Empress has always been there. But she's not old. She has always been young. She still is. Her life isn't measured by time, but by names. She needs a new name. She keeps needing new names.

You've saved my life all the same- even if I had something to do with it.

When your turn comes to jump into the Nothing, you too will be a nameless servant of power, with no will of your own. Who knows what use they will make of you? Maybe you'll help them persuade people to buy things they don't need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them. Yes, you little Fantastican, big things will be done in the human world with your help, wars started, empires founded ... " " The human world is full of weak-minded people, who think they're as clever as can be and are convinced that it's terribly important to persuade even the children that Fantastica doesn't exist. Maybe they will be able to make good use of you.

I did everything wrong," he said. "I misunderstood everything. Moon Child gave me so much, and all I did with it was harm, harm to myself and harm to Fantastica."
Dame Eyola gave him a long look.
No," she said. "I don't believe so. You went the way of wishes, and that is never straight. You went the long way around, but that was your way. And do you know why? Because you are one of those who can't go back until they have found the fountain from which springs the Water of Life. And that's the most secret place in Fantastica. There's no simple way of getting there."
After a short silence she added: "But every way that leads there is the right one.

Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.
Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.
Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.

The House of Change... is bigger inside than out.

While progressing in this way, with a dirty street ahead of him and a clean one behind, he often had grand ideas. They were ideas that couldn't easily be put into words, though - ideas as hard to define as a half-remembered scent or a colour seen in a dream.

She would sit by herself in the middle of the old stoe amphitheatre, with the sky's starry vault overhead, and simply listen to the great silence around her.

There were doors that looked like large keyholes, others that resembled the entrances to caves, there were golden doors, some were padded and some were studded with nails, some were paper-thin and others as thick as the doors of treasure houses; there was one that looked like a giant's mouth and another that had to be opened like a drawbridge, one that suggested a big ear and one that was made of gingerbread, one that was shaped like an oven door, and one that had to be unbuttoned.

Maybe all the people who say ghosts don't exist are just afraid to admit that they do.

Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.

She felt as if she were imprisoned in a vault heaped with priceless treasures - an ever-growing hoard that threatened to crush the life out of her. There was no way out, either. The vault was impenetrable and she was far too deeply buried beneath a mountain of time to attract anyone's attention.

Bastian had climbed a dune of purplish-red sand and all around him he saw nothing but hill after hill of every imaginable color. Each hill revealed a shade or tint that occured in no other. The nearest was cobalt blue, another was saffron yellow, then came crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve, turquoise blue, lilac, moss green, ruby red, burnt umber, Indian yellow, vermillion, lapis lazuli, and so on from horizon to horizon. And between the hill, separating color from color, flowed streams of gold and silver sand.

Most of the time she could slip into other people, so to speak, and discover what they really meant and who they actually were behind their words. But she couldn't do it with this visitor. No matter how often she tried to understand his thoughts, she always got the feeling that she was falling into empty darkness, as if there weren't even a person there at all.

Some think their only hope of happiness lies in being someone else, and spend their whole lives traveling place to place.

It's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop
and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.
That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.
And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too ... (28-29)

To be wise was to be above joy and sorrow, fear and pity, ambition and humiliation. It was to hate nothing and to love nothing, and above all to be utterly indifferent to the love and hate of others.

When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.

It says that Moon Child's power ends here. She is the only one who can never set foot in this place. She cannot penetrate to the center of A U R Y N, because she cannot cast off her own self.

He felt very lonely, yet there was a kind of pride in his loneliness.

All the beasts in Howling Forest were safe in their caves, nests, and burrows.

Her feelings of fear and helplessness had reached such a pitch that they were suddenly transformed into their opposites. Having overcome them, she felt corageous and self-confident enough to tackle any power on earth; more precisely, she had ceased to worry about herself.

There are many kinds of delusion.

... Without memory how will you ever find your way back to where you came from?

My will can control anything that's empty.

Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.

Reluctantly Bastian's thoughts turned back to reality. He was glad the Neverending Story had nothing to do with that.
He didn't like books in which dull, cranky writers describe humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people. Reality gave him enough of that kind of thing, why should he read about it? Besides, he couldn't stand it when a writer tried to convince him of something. And these humdrum books, it seemed to him, were always trying to do just that.
Bastian liked books that were exciting or funny, or that made him dream. Books where made-up characters had marvelous adventures, books that made him imagine all sorts of things.
Because one thing he was good at, possibly the only thing, was imagining things so clearly that he almost saw and heard them.

When it comes to controlling humans, there is no better instrument than lies.

One day, you don't feel like doing anything. Nothing interests you, everything bores you. Feel more and more empty inside, more and more dissatisfied with yourself and the world in general. Then even that feeling wears off, and you don't feel anything anymore. You become completely indifferent to what goes on around you ... You forget how to laugh and cry - you're cold inside and incapable of loving anything or anyone ... There's no going back ... The disease has a name. It's called deadly tedium.

He's a good old sort. If only he weren't plumb crazy!

A person's reason for doing someone a good turn matters as much as the good turn itself.

People? People have been obsolete for years, They've made the world a place where there's no room left for their own kind.

You must live your story.

There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved.

The Glory was entrusted to you, you weren't given permission to pass it on as you see fit.

Bastian looked at the book.
'I wonder,' he said to himself, 'what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures, deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.'
Suddenly an almost festive mood came over him.
He settled himself down, picked up the book, opened it to the first page, and began to read ...

... Up until then he had always wanted to be someone other than he was, but he didn't want to change.

All the world's misfortunes stemmed from the countless untruths, both deliberate and unintentional, which people told because of haste or carelessness.

And there in the snow lay the pictures, like jewels bedded in white silk. They were paper-thin sheets of colored transparent isin glass of every size and shape, some round, some square, some damaged, some intact, some as large as church windows, others as small as snuffbox miniatures.

Anyone who still thinks that listening is nothing special should simply try to do it half as well.

Those who still think that listening isn't an art should see if they can do it half as well.

And not only of even mainly because of the protection it had given him - it was thanks to his own strength, after all, that he had stood up to all the hardships and terrors and the loneliness of his Quest - but as long as he had carried the emblem, he had never been at a loss for what to do. Like a mysterious compass, it had guided his thoughts in the right direction. And now that was changed, now he had no secret power to lead him. He had no idea what to do, but he couldn't bear to stand there as though paralyzed.

He had never been willing to believe that life had to be as gray and dull as people claimed. He heard them saying: "Life is like that," but he couldn't agree. He never stopped believing in mysteries and miracles.

Human passions have mysterious ways, in children as well as grown-ups. Those affected by them can't explain them, and those who haven't known them have no understanding of them at all.

Every real story is a never ending story.

Without a past you can't have a future.

At certain junctures in the course of existence, unique moments occur when everyone and everything, even the most distant stars, combine to bring about something that could not have happened before and will never happen again. Few people know how to take advantage of these critical moments, unfortunately, and they often pass unnoticed. When someone does recognize them, however, great things happen in the world.

But that is another story and shall be told another time.

What I've started I must finish. I've gone too far to turn back. Regardless of what may happen, I have to go forward.

One may enter the literary parlor via just about any door, be it the prison door, the madhouse door, or the brothel door. There is but one door one may not enter it through, which is the child room door. The critics will never forgive you such. The great Rudyard Kipling is one of a number of people to have suffered from this. I keep wondering to myself what this peculiar contempt towards anything related to childhood is all about.

Atreyu was fighting not for himself, but for his friend, whom he was trying to save by defeating him.

The human world is full of weak-minded people, who think they're as clever as can be and are convinced that it's terribly important to persuade even the children that Fanstastica doesn't exist.

They look like good, strong hands.

If you do, you'll be running an incalculable risk. It will be up to you whether the world begins to live again or stands still forever and a day. Are you really prepared to take that risk?

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless.
If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.

Nothing can happen more than once, but everything must happen one day; Over hill and dale, wood and stream, my dying voice will blow away ...

[…] Evil appears quite different when seen from the point of view of eternity than when seen from within the kingdom of time. Up yonder one sees that it actually always serves Good in the long run. It is, so to speak, a contradiction in itself. It is constantly striving for power over Good, but without Good it could not exist – and if it ever achieved total power, it would have to destroy precisely that over which it desires to wield said power. That's why it can last only as long as it is incomplete […]. If it were complete, it would cancel itself out. That's why it has no place in eternity. Only Good is eternal, for it contains itself without contradiction.

Momo listened to everyone and everything - even to the rain and the wind and the pine trees - and all of them spoke to her after their own fashion.

He wanted to be loved for being just what he was. In this community of Yskalnari there was harmony, but no love.
He no longer wanted to be the greatest, strongest or cleverest. He had left all that far behind. He longed to be loved just as he was, good or bad, handsome or ugly, clever or stupid, with all his faults - or possibly because of them.
But what was he actually?
He no longer knew. So much have been given to him in Fantastica, and now, among all these gifts and powers, he could no longer find himself.