Quotes from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“A thousand enemies outside the house are better than one within. Arab proverb”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“Nichts war grausamer als ein Herz aus Fleisch und Blut, weil es wusste, was Schmerzen bereitet.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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?”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“There is a sort of busy worm, That will the fairest book deform. Their tasteless tooth will tear and taint The poet, patriot, sage or saint, Nor sparing wit nor learning. Now, if you’d know the reason why, The best of reasons I’ll supply: ’Tis bread to the poor vermin. J. Doraston, quoted by W. Blades”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“widened greedily, Meggie concluded they could only be discussing a book,”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“I libri devono essere pesanti perché dentro hanno il mondo intero.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“Faccio volentieri delle promesse, specialmente quelle che non posso mantenere.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“La paura ha tutto un altro sapore quando la si vive dal vero, Meggie, e giocare all’eroe non era così divertente come mi ero immaginato.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“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”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“Nothing chased nightmares away faster than the rustle of printed paper. But”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“«Cara Elinor, evidentemente lei è nata nella storia sbagliata» osservò Dita di Polvere. Erano le prime parole che pronunciava dall’inizio del viaggio.
«Nella storia sbagliata? Vorrà dire nell’epoca sbagliata. Sì, anch’io l’ho pensato spesso».
«La chiami un po’ come le pare» replicò lui.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

“Il punto è che credi troppo volentieri a ciò che vuoi credere.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from The Inkheart Trilogy: Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath

About the author

Popular quotes

“Understood what it meant to feel at home wherever you were. To feel as though you belonged in any moment, at any place, in any time.”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from The Rose & the Dagger

“You killed more people than anybody in history."

"Be the best at whatever you do, that's what my mother always told me.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from La voz de los muertos

“Sometimes it’s a flutter, a flicker of wings in your chest. Others, it’s a relentless vise that stops the beat, if only for a second. It might be a hot burn, spreading like wildfire in your ribs, or an icy cold space, empty and void. But the heart always reacts. Even after seven years, just hearing his name inspired any of those reactions or a dozen more. And there was one every single time.”
― Staci Hart, quote from A Thousand Letters

“...Ty grabbed my phone and threatened to tell Otter that I liked being spanked during sex.

This proceeded to lead up on a long tangent where I had to have him explain to me how he knows about stuff like people getting spanked during sex. H said he might have heard it mentioned while watching MSNBC. I told him he was grounded from watching the news channels for a week. That's where this whole sidebar should have ended, but then I was forced to explain S & M and bondage to my little brother, who was persistent on the topic, and who kept staring at me with mounting horror when I finally /did/ explain, and I realized I had maybe gone too far, and we had to spend the next five minutes swearing to God that I had never nor would I ever attempt to do anything like that. He might now be the only nine-year-old who has heard the terms "cock ring" and "fisting". My parenting skills are unparalleled.”
― T.J. Klune, quote from Bear, Otter, and the Kid

“science can save a man’s life, but imagination makes it worth living. Take”
― Natasha Pulley, quote from The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.