Inkspell Quotes

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.

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.

So what? All writers are lunatics!

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.

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.

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.

a book always keeps something of its owner between its pages.

There could be few men whose love for a woman had been written on his face with a knife.

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

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.

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!

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

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

Reality is a fragile thing.

Don't let it worry you, not being able to speak,'Dustfinger had often told her. 'People tend not to listen anyway, right?

Farid had brought an invisible guest with him. Fear.

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.

But after all, the villains are the salt in the soup of a story.

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!

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.

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?

Let's be off before he gets his great horsey teeth into my poor lines of verse!

Words,words filled the night like the fragrance of invisible flowers.

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!

with every new day, Fenoglio's story was spinning a magic spell around her heart, sticky as spider's webs and enchantingly beautiful

She had only to open a door, nothing but a door between the words,just large enough for her and Farid to pass through....

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?

Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page any more than they begin on the first page

Odd that your heart didn’t simply stop when it hurt so much.

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

What a plague love is!

He felt Death reaching out to him. But all of a sudden there was something else, too: words. Words that relieved the pain, cooled his brow, and spoke of love, nothing but love... It was his daughter's voice, and the White Women withdrew their pale hands as if they had burned themselves on her love.

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

A story wearing another dress every time you hear it - what could be better? A story that grows and puts out flowers like a living thing! But look at the stories people press in books! They may last longer, yes, but they breathe only when someone opens the book. They are sound pressed between the pages, and only a voice can bring them back to life! Then they throw off sparks, Balbulus! Then they go free as birds flying out into the world. Perhaps you're right, and the paper makes them immortal. But why should I care? Will I live on, neatly pressed between the pages with my words? Nonsense! We're none of us immortal; even the finest words don't change that, do they?

A thousand enemies outside the house are better than one within. Arab proverb

- Nulla è eterno, Balbulus. E che cosa c'è di meglio, per le parole, che essere cantate in giro? Sì, certo, ogni volta mutano, hanno una melodia diversa. Ma non è questo il bello?

My darling,” she said at last, “are you sure you don’t mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?” “I don’t mind at all,” I said. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you.

Everyone living around this lake thinks I’m crazy, and if we go back to the police with this story, then the news that Elinor Loredan has finally flipped will be all over the place. Which just goes to show that a passion for books is extremely unhealthy.

How well worn they all were..."Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said when, on Meggie's last birthday, they were looking at all her dear old books again. "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.

He bent over Farid and wiped some soot from his cold forehead. "Roxanne knows it," he said. "She'll tell it to you. Just go to her and... and tell her I've had to go away. Tell her I'm going to find out if the story is true." He spoke with a strange kind of hesitation, as if it were infinitely difficult to find the right words. "And remind her of my promise— that I'll always find a way back to her, wherever I am. Will you tell her that?

Farid...She missed him so much that she felt ashamed of it.

It’s a good idea to have your own books with you in a strange place,

Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird And catch the worm for your breakfast plate. If you’re a bird, be an early bird But if you’re a worm, sleep late.

Nichts war grausamer als ein Herz aus Fleisch und Blut, weil es wusste, was Schmerzen bereitet.

Nothing chased nightmares away faster than the rustle of printed paper. But

Perhaps she was more like him than he’d thought: Her home, too, had consisted of paper and printer’s ink. She probably felt as lost as he did in the real world.

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

-No te preocupes por no poder hablar -solía decirle Dedo Polvoriento-. La gente no suele prestar atención.

I woke up and knew he was gone. Straightaway I knew he was gone. When you love somebody you know these things. David Almond, Skellig

Death has white hounds.

Look. (Grown-ups skip this paragraph.) I’m not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending, I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there’s a lot of bad stuff coming. William Goldman, The Princess Bride

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.

It was far easier to believe in unhappiness than in happiness.

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

It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Time is a horse that runs in the heart, a horse Without a rider on a road at night. The mind sits listening and hears it pass.

Worte taugen nichts. Ja, manchmal klangen sie wunderbar, aber sie liessen einen im Stich, sobald man sie wirklich brauchte. Nie fand man die richtigen, niemals, aber wo sollte man auch nach ihnen suchen? Das Herz ist stumm wie ein Fish, auch wenn die Zunge sich noch so viel Muehe gibt, ihm eine Stimme zu geben.

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

In books I meet the dead as if they were alive, in books I see what is yet to come … All things decay and pass with time … all fame would fall victim to oblivion if God had not given mortal men the book to aid them.

After all,” she said, “many people here have little enough patience or understanding for their fellow human beings who are only superficially different than them—so how would it be for little people with blue skins who can fly?

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.” He

The poem you brought yesterday,’ said Balbulus in a bored voice as he bent over his work again, ‘it was good. You ought to write such things more often, but I know you prefer writing stories for children or songs for the Motley Folk. And why? Just for the wind to sing your words? The spoken word is nothing, it hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal!’ ‘Eternal?’ Fenoglio made the word sound as if there could be nothing more ridiculous in the world. ‘Nothing is eternal- and what happier fate could words have than to be sung by minstrels? Yes, of course they change the words, they sing them slightly differently every time, but isn’t that in itself wonderful? A story wearing another dress every time you hear it- what could be better? A story that grows and puts out flowers like a living thing! But look at the stories people press in books! They may last longer, yes, but they breathe only when someone opens the book. They are sound pressed between the pages, and only a voice can bring them back to life! Then they throw off sparks, Balbulus! Then they go free as birds flying out into the world. Perhaps you’re right, and the paper makes them immortal. But why should I care? Will I live on, neatly pressed between the pages with my words? Nonsense! We’re none of us immortal; even the finest words don’t change that, do they?

The books in Mo and Meggie’s house were stacked under tables, on chairs, in the corners of the rooms. There were 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 fell over them. “He’s just standing there!” whispered Meggie, leading Mo into her room. “Has he got a hairy face? If so he could be a werewolf.” “Oh, stop it!” Meggie looked at him sternly, although his jokes made her feel less scared. Already, she hardly believed anymore in the figure standing in the rain—until she knelt down again at the window. “There! Do you see him?” she whispered. Mo looked out through the raindrops running down the

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

The python dropped his head lightly for a moment on Mowgli’s shoulders. “A brave heart and a courteous tongue,” said he. “They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.

Maybe people don’t see the cruelty in your world right away, it’s better hidden, but it’s there all the same.

Jealousy still gave him a pang. The heart was a stupid thing.

[She] did not reply. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to listen to what her bewildered heart was telling her.

The road went ever more steeply downhill. Overhead, the branches of the trees intertwined. It was a still, windless morning, cloudy and damp.

- E allora? Tutti gli scrittori sono svitati!

widened greedily, Meggie concluded they could only be discussing a book,

Children, they’re the same everywhere. Greedy little creatures but the best listeners in the world — any world. The very best of all.

forget them, or the loss of them all will drive you mad. But his heart simply did not obey. Memories, so sweet and so 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?

Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way. Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Lady Cora,’ he said, ‘sometimes one has to do things which are unpalatable. When great issues are involved one can’t toy with the situation in silk gloves. No. We are making history.’ Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

Although it’s not just plants and animals that die out, so do books. Quite often, I’m sorry to say. I’m sure you could fill a hundred houses like this one to the roof with all the books that have disappeared forever.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. William Shakespeare, Sonnets, No. 130

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. Dustfinger

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?

If ye see the laird, tell him what ye hear; tell him this makes the twelve hunner and nineteen time that Jennet Clouston has called down the curse on him and his house, byre and stable, man, guest and master, wife, miss, or bairn—black, black be their fall.” Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped

Una storia cambia continuamente vestito. Una storia cresce e germoglia come un qualcosa di vivo! Quelle che vengono chiuse nei libri, invece? Sì, magari vivono più a lungo, ma prendono vita solo quando i libri vengono aperti. Sono suoni pressati tra i fogli, e solo una voce può dar loro fiato!

He bent down and lifted Sophie from his pocket… . She was still in her nightie and her feet were bare. She shivered and stared around her at the swirling mists and ghostly vapors. “Where are we?” she asked. “We is in Dream Country,” the BFG said. “This is where all dreams is beginning.” Roald Dahl, The BFG

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 … and when at last he goeth to his last punishment, let the flames of hell consume him for ever. Curse on book thieves, from the monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona, Spain T

night.” “Sometimes, yes,” Meggie had said. “But it only works for children.” Which made Mo tweak her nose. Mo. Meggie had never called her father anything else. That night—when so much began and so many things changed forever—Meggie had one of her favorite books under her pillow, and since the rain wouldn’t let her sleep she sat up, rubbed the drowsiness from her eyes, and took it out. Its pages rustled promisingly when she opened it. Meggie thought this first whisper sounded a little different from one book to another, depending on whether or not she already knew the story it was going to tell her. But she needed light. She had a box of matches hidden in the drawer of her bedside table. Mo had forbidden her to light candles at night. He didn’t like fire. “Fire devours books,” he always said, but she was twelve years old, she surely could be trusted to keep an eye on a couple of candle flames. Meggie loved to read by candlelight. She had five candlesticks on the windowsill, and she was just holding the lighted match to one of the black wicks when she heard footsteps outside. She blew out the match in alarm—oh, how well she remembered it, even many years later—and knelt to look out of the window, which was wet with rain. Then she saw him. The rain cast a kind of pallor on the darkness, and the stranger was little more than a shadow. Only his face gleamed white as he looked up at Meggie. His hair clung to his wet forehead. The rain was falling on him, but he ignored it. He stood there motionless, arms crossed over his chest as if that might at least warm him a little. And he kept on staring at the house. I must go and wake Mo, thought Meggie. But she stayed put, her heart thudding, and went on gazing out into the night as if the stranger’s stillness had infected her. Suddenly, he turned his head, and Meggie felt as if he were looking straight into her eyes. She shot off the bed so fast the open book fell to the floor, and she ran barefoot out into the dark corridor. This was the end of May, but it was chilly in the old house. There was still a light on in Mo’s room. He often stayed up reading late into the night. Meggie had inherited her love of books from her father. When she took refuge from a bad dream with him, nothing could lull her to sleep better than Mo’s calm breathing beside her and the sound of the pages turning. Nothing chased nightmares away faster than

-¡Escucha! –exclamó-. Sé que es difícil de creer, pero si algo puede abrir las puertas de las mazmorras del Castillo de la Noche son las palabras de esta carta… y la lengua de Meggie. Ella es capaz de hacer que la tinta respire, Roxana, igual que tú con tus canciones. Su padre posee el mismo don. Si Cabeza de Víbora lo supiera seguramente lo habría ahorcado hace mucho tiempo. Las palabras con las que el padre de Meggie mató a Capricornio eran tan inofensivas como éstas. ¡Cómo lo miró Roxana! Con la misma incredulidad que antes, cada vez que Dedo Polvoriento había intentado explicarle su ausencia durante semanas. -¡Hablas de hechicería! –musitó ella. -No. Hablo de leer.

She looked inquiringly at Meggie. “Do you like Alice in Wonderland?” “Not particularly,” said Meggie, staring at the map. Elinor shook her head at such childish folly and turned back to Dustfinger.

Las malas historias no despiertan a la vida. No hay ningún Dedo Polvoriento en ellas.

It was a page he had Found in the handbook Of heartbreak. Wallace Stevens, “Madame la Fleurie,” Collected Poems I

I want to see thirst In the syllables, Touch fire In the sound; Feel through the dark For the scream. Pablo Neruda, “Word,” Five Decades T

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!

The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink. Chinese proverb, Die Weisse und die Schwarze Kunst

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

It’s always like that in stories: bad things happen but then it all ends happily. And this is a story.

All words are written in the same ink, ‘flower’ and ‘power’, say, are much the same, and though I might write ‘blood, blood, blood’ all over the page the paper would not be stained nor would I bleed. Philippe Jacottet, ‘Chant d’en bas

Heavens, what a plague love was! Anyone who claimed otherwise had never yet felt that wretched trembling of the heart.

The blue of my eyes was extinguished tonight The red gold of my heart Georg Trakl, ‘By Night’, Poems

Nichts ist ewig, Balbulus - und Worten kann nichts Besseres passieren, als von einem Spielmann gesungen zu werden! Ja, sicher, sie verändern sich dadurch, werden jedes Mal auf etwas andere Weise gesungen, aber ist das nicht wunderbar? Eine Geschichte, die stets ein anderes Kleid trägt, wenn man sie wiederhört - was gibt es Besseres? Eine Geschichte, die wächst und Blüten treibt wie ein lebendiges Ding!

Sollte er Staubfinger vielleicht doch noch etwas schlechter machen? Nein, er hatte ihn schon umgebracht, heute würde er ihm einen Gefallen tun. Heute würde er seine Frau dazu bringen, ihm ein für alle Mal zu verzeihen, dass er zehn Jahre fort gewesen war. Manchmal kann ich doch wahrlich ein netter Mensch sein!, dachte Fenoglio.