Funke Quotes

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? ~ Cornelia Funke

Perhaps because this time not fear but love made him read. ~ Cornelia Funke

The Fairy looked at the broken glass around her feet. Her shattered cage. And the one who'd put her in it was far, far away. But, no, she had caged herself. ~ Cornelia Funke

Sometimes, when I went to the spring to wash early in the morning," he murmured, "there'd be tiny fairies flitting around above the water, not much bigger than the butterflies you have here, and blue as violet petals. They liked to fly into my hair. Sometimes they spat in my face. They weren't very friendly, but they shone like glowworms by night. I sometimes caught one and put it in a jar. If I let it out at night before going to sleep I had wonderful dreams."
"Capricorn said there were trolls and giants, too," said Meggie quietly.
Dustfinger gave her a thoughtful look. "Yes, there were," he said. "But Capricorn wasn't particularly fond of them. He'd have liked to do away with them all. He had them hunted. He hunted anything that could run."
"It must be a dangerous world." Meggie was trying to imagine it all: the giants, the trolls, and the fairies. Mo had once given her a book about fairies.
Dustfinger shrugged. "Yes, it's dangerous, so what? This world's dangerous, too, isn't it? ~ Cornelia Funke

Books are like flypaper, memories cling to the printed pages better than anything else. ~ Cornelia Funke

I know you all think I'm a magician, but I'm not. The magic comes out of the books
themselves, and I have no more idea than you or any of your men how it works. ~ Cornelia Funke

She had thought the chewing and digesting were meant literally and wondered, horrified, why Mo had hung on his workshop door the words of someone who vandalized books. ~ Cornelia Funke

things may be acceptable to our society however, it is not acceptable to God. ~ Pam Funke

What's so unusual about that, princess?" he asked quietly. "Do you know how your story ends? ~ Cornelia Funke

A story is a labyrinth, it looks as if there were several ways to go, but only one is right, and there's a nasty surprise ready to punish you for every false step. ~ Cornelia Funke

Oh, putrid puffballs! Stop winding us all up like this or I'll tie a knot in your tail! ~ Cornelia Funke

Fox could've kissed him on the mouth just to taste the smile on his lips. Forbidden. She'd almost forgotten. ~ Cornelia Funke

Some books should be tasted,
Some devoured,
But only a few
Should be chewed and digested
Thoroughly ~ Cornelia Funke

Courage was not given; it was acquired, earned. You had to take the difficult paths. ~ Cornelia Funke

They are shooting The Thief Lord in Venice at the moment. ~ Cornelia Funke

I've realized I don't need to keep looking for my path. I'm already on it. I just need to trust where it leads. ~ Teresa R. Funke, Bursts Of Brilliance For A Creative Life Blog

Everyone is small at night. ~ Cornelia Funke

She shed no tears. She just sat there, as if someone had cut out her heart. ~ Cornelia Funke

Love makes cowards of us all. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

As artists, it is our job to question the rules and ask if they are relevant or outdated, necessary or arbitrary, helpful or oppressive. ~ Teresa R. Funke, Bursts Of Brilliance For A Creative Life Blog

And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts. ~ Cornelia Funke

The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with weary feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ~ Cornelia Funke

This is how hatred begins
with a muffled laugh on a hot night and a knock on the door. ~ Teresa R. Funke

They forked up in the air for him, like trees branching in the night, and rained down sparks. They roared and whispered with their crackling voices, they had danced when he said the word. The flames here were both tame and mutinous, strange, silent beasts that sometimes bit the hand that fed them. Only occasionally, on cold nights when there was nothing but the flames to stave off his loneliness, did he think he heard them calling to him, but they whispered words he didn't understand. ~ Cornelia Funke

Wasn't that what all stories said?You felt it, like a pang in your heart, when something was happening to someone you love ~ Cornelia Funke

He pressed his fist to where his heart had once beaten, and I did the same. I'm sure I looked like a total idiot, but I think we all do when we're really happy. Except for Longspee. He just looked fabulous being happy. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

Nothing chased nightmares away faster than the rustle of printed paper. ~ Cornelia Funke

Reality is a fragile thing. ~ Cornelia Funke

Love is always a prison. ~ Cornelia Funke

Girl. Woman. So much more vulnerable. Strong and yet weak. A heart that knew no armor. ~ Cornelia Funke

Nobody loves only once. ~ Cornelia Funke

It's a good idea to have your own books with you in a strange place ~ Cornelia Funke

Nothing was more cruel than a heart made of flesh and blood, because it knew what gives pain. ~ Cornelia Funke

I let all that anger and worry go because they don't belong to me any more than the future does. And I don't wanna feel them anyhow, because the truth is, whatever happens when this war ends, here and now, far from Richmond County, I'm freer than I've ever been. ~ Teresa R. Funke

Oh yes, he was an idiot. He'd always been frightened by how much he needed her. And now it was too late. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

She pressed her hand against her chest. No heart. So where did the love she felt come from? ~ Cornelia Funke

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.. ~ Cornelia Funke

when the shadows of your life haunt you, and you bitterly miss the ones you once loved, then only sleep can grant oblivion ~ Cornelia Funke

The rain pummeled the old Dragon bones as though to provide the rhythm to the song of their mortality, but death was not what they had on their minds - or wasn't love sometimes called the small death? ~ Cornelia Funke

Second, there are so many magical places in books that you can't go to, like Hogwarts and Middle Earth, so I wanted to set a story in a place where children can actually go. ~ Cornelia Funke

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

The Weaver wove herself from the thread of night, hair of moonlight, skin of stars. So old. Without beginning or end. ~ Cornelia Funke

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? ~ Cornelia Funke

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

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

How loud small noises sound in a silence. ~ Cornelia Funke

And I plan to write a sequel to Dragon Rider. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

He sought her lips as if he needed to breathe through her, as if only she could keep him from choking on his rage. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

Bo : Prop's very brave and I'm
good at cheering him up, so
we make a good team. ~ Cornelia Funke

If you build a wall to separate people, there will be those who find a way around the wall, or over it, or under it, or through it. We humans are not meant to be contained, and neither are our thoughts. ~ Teresa R. Funke, Bursts Of Brilliance For A Creative Life Blog

A strong and bitter book-sickness floods one's soul. How ignominious to be strapped to this ponderous mass of paper, print and dead man's sentiment. Would it not be better, finer, braver to leave the rubbish where it lies and walk out into the world a free untrammelled illiterate Superman? ~ Cornelia Funke

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

Ah,yes!That ... Silvertongue!" Orpheus spoke the name in a disparaging tone, as if he couldn't believe that anyone really deserved it.
Yes, that's what he's called. How do you know?" There was no mistaking Dustfinger's surprise.
The hellhound snuffled at Farid's bare toes. Orpheus shrugged. "Sooner or later you get to hear of everyone who can breate life into letters on a page. ~ Cornelia Funke

Why did such truths only reveal themselves after they'd become lies? ~ Cornelia Funke

For the hundredth time, she closed her eyes so she could see another room in her mind's eye, one with a curtain full of stars, and a mattress surrounded by books that whispered their stories to her at night. – Pg. 235 ~ Cornelia Funke

Nothing is more frightening than a fear you cannot name. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn't ask for anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly. Love, truth, beauty, wisdom and consolation against death. Who had said that? someone else who loved books. ~ Cornelia Funke

They were her home when she was somewhere strange. They were familiar voices, friends that never quarreled with her, clever, powerful friends - daring and knowledgable, 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 while Mo cut leather and fabric to the right size and re-stitched old pages that over countless years had grown fragile from the many fingers leafing through them. ~ Cornelia Funke

Children, they're the same everywhere. Greedy little creatures but the best listeners in the world -any world. The very best of all. ~ Cornelia Funke

It's a cruel world, don't you think? ~ Cornelia Funke

Nothing is more terrifying than fearlessness. ~ 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. ~ Cornelia Funke

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

They (books) 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. ~ Cornelia Funke

That bloody bastard! That thrice accursed son of a bitch! ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

Everything gets to me. I'm very sentimental. ~ Cornelia Funke

A mirror hung between the shelves.
Clara stepped in front of it and let her fingers run over the silver roses that covered the frame. She had never seen anything so beautiful. The glass they surrounded was dark, as if the night had spilled onto it. It was misted up, and right where she saw the reflection of her face was the imprint of a hand. ~ Cornelia Funke

There are not so many mythical creatures from Inkheart. ~ Cornelia Funke

I know why you're here ... This world doesn't frighten you half as much as the other one. You have nothing and nobody to lose here. Except Fox, and she clearly worries more about you than you do about her. You've left all that could frighten you in the other world. But then Will came here and brought it all with him. ~ Cornelia Funke

My voice had bayou gut them slipping out of their story like a bookmark forgotten by a reader between the pages ~ Cornelia Funke

Bad news? Oh, festering fungus! What sort of bad news? ~ Cornelia Funke

And the pain was back again, and time, and longing too. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

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

Perhaps the story now goes on beyond the book. ~ Cornelia Funke

One day this war will end. And when it does, Tule Lake will be just a memory. ~ Teresa R. Funke

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? ~ Cornelia Funke

Dustfinger closed his eyes and listened.
He was home again. ~ Cornelia Funke

Mortimer!" Orpheus produced a derisive smile, although with some difficulty. "Is your head buried so deep in your wine jug that you don't know what's going on in this world of yours? He's not doing any reading now. The bookbinder prefers to play the outlaw these days - the role you created especially for him. ~ Cornelia Funke

What else but death could you hope to reap when you gave your heart to a mortal? ~ Cornelia Funke

Yes, I always imagined living in other places. ~ Cornelia Funke

How could it be true that [he] was dead, and how would it feel to have him dead in her heart forever? ~ Cornelia Funke

Fear was not red, fear is pale as a dead man's face ~ Cornelia Funke

No. Nothing could make it easier. You lost what you loved. That was death, here as well as there. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them. ~ Cornelia Funke

The best part about dreams is that, like all great stories, we get to decide the endings. ~ Teresa R. Funke, Bursts Of Brilliance For A Creative Life Blog

If you keep pretending you're in that book, it will make you not want to live in the life you're in. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke

He closed the window, and the scents of the past again flooded the room, like a bunch of wilted flowers. ~ Cornelia Funke

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. ~ Cornelia Funke