It was a chilly morning after the night’s rain, and the sun hung in the sky like a pale coin lost by someone high up in the clouds.

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

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.

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

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.

…….only the powerful were hated, and that was what he was meant to be in this world.Powerful.

Because fear kills everything,” Mo had once told her. “Your mind, your heart, your imagination.

What was this yearning, tearing at her insides like hunger and thirst? It couldn’t be love. Love was warm and soft, like a bed of leaves. But this was dark, like the shade under a...

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....

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...

Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you secruity and friendship and didn’t ask for anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly.

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

Nothing is more terrifying than fearlessness.

I think we should sometimes read stories where everything’s different from our world, don’t you agree? There’s nothing like it for teaching us to wonder why trees are green and not red, and why we...

You’d like him back, too, wouldn’t you?”It was difficult for her to turn her eyes away from Farid’s face. “He’ll never come back,” she whispered, and look at Dustfinger. She didn’t have the strength to...

Secrets… nothing eats away at love faster.

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.

He saw so many emotions mingled on her face: anger disappointment, fear – and defiance. Like her daughter, thought Fenoglio again. So uncompromising, so strong. Women were different, no doubt about it. Men broke so...

The only way ghosts can hurt you is through your own fear

What are stories for if we don’t learn from them?

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

Secrets…. nothing eats away at love faster.

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...

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.

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,...

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

Io non credo fondamentalmente a nessuno, ormai dovresti saperlo. Siamo tutti bugiardi quando serve.

What was she hoping to gain from his death? That it would numb the pain of his betrayal, or heal her injured pride? Her red sister didn’t know much about love.

Elinor had read countless stories in which the main characters fell sick at some point because they were so unhappy. She had always thought that a very romantic idea, but she’d dismissed it as a...

When the heart craved something so forcefully, then reason became nothing but helpless observer.

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...

I’m perfectly happy to know the world at secondhand. It’s a lot safer.

Sai bene quanto il fuoco sia facile a offendersi.

You forgot something important!-What?-It’s under my sweater!-WHAT?!-Me!

Killing is easy,” said Mo, “Dying is harder…

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...

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!

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...

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.

Da dove devo cominciare? Intanto, va chiarita subito una cosa fondamentale: un romanziere non scrive mai tutto quello che sa sui suoi personaggi. I lettori non devono venire a sapere tutto. Alcuni aspetti è meglio...

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?

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.

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.

Unlike me, he realized that Dustfinger would do anything in return for such a promise. All he wants is to go back to his own world. He doesn’t even stop to ask if his story...

Il punto è che credi troppo volentieri a ciò che vuoi credere.

Voglio dire che io fiuto le belle storie a chilometri di distanza. Quindi non tenti di nascondermene una. Sputi fuori, forza, e in cambio si guadagna una fetta di questo fantastico dolce con i buchi...

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...

All writers are insane!

Look at your daughter,’ she whispered. ‘As brave as…as..” She wanted to compare Meggie to a hero in some story but all the heroes she could think of were men, and anyway none of them...

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