Das Leben ist zu kostbar, um es dem Schicksal zu überlassen.

Hexen stehen immer zwischen Birken

Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes – they’d sooner eat the same things all the time – but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes.

Sometimes, in the course of my hopeless quest, I would pick up and dip into one of the ordinary books that lay strewn around the castle. Whenever I did, it seemed so insipid and insubstantial that I flew into a rage and hurled it at the wall after reading the first few sentences. I was...

That was a day that taught me the meaning of abject failure.

I will quote one sentence from this text, namely, the one with which it ended. It was also the sentence which finally dissolved the writer’s block that had inhibited the author from starting work. I have since used it whenever I myself have been gripped by fear of the blank sheet in front of me....

Lesen, lesen, immer nur lesen und darüber die eigene erbärmliche Existenz vergessen!

In tiefen, kalten, hohlen Räumen,Wo Schatten sich mit Schatten paaren,Wo alte Bücher Träume träumen,Von Zeiten, als sie Bäume waren,Wo Kohle Diamant gebiert,Man weder Licht noch Gnade kennt,Dort ist’s, wo jener Geist regiert,Den man den Schattenkönig nennt.

This is wine,” Ghoolion said solemnly. “Wine is drinkable sunlight. It’s the most glorious summer’s day imaginable, captured in a bottle. Wine can be a melody in a cut-glass goblet, but it can also be a cacophony in a dirty tumbler, or a rainy autumn night, or a funeral march that scorches your tongue.

Life is too precious to be left to chance

never trust a Troglotroll

Picture to yourself the most beautiful girl imaginable! She was so beautiful that there would be no point, in view of my meagre talent for storytelling, in even trying to put her beauty into words. That would far exceed my capabilities, so I’ll refrain from mentioning whether she was a blonde or a brunette or...

If flatness were funny, a dinner plate would be hilarious.

Reading is an intelligent way of not having to think.

In my profession it isn’t a question of telling good literature from bad. Really good literature is seldom appreciated in its own day. The best authors die poor, the bad ones make money — it’s always been like that. What do I, an agent, get out of a literary genius who won’t be discovered for...

Es kommt nicht darauf an, wie eine Geschichte anfängt. Auch nicht darauf, wie sie aufhört. Sondern auf das, was dazwischen passiert.

Rumo!” said Rumo. “That’s right!” Smyke exclaimed. “You Rumo, me Smyke.” “You Rumo, me Smyke.” Rumo repeated eagerly. “No, no.” Smyke chuckled.

Lest soviel ihr könnt! Lest Straßenschilder und Speisekarten, lest die Anschläge im Bürgermeisteramt, lest von mir aus Schundliteratur – aber lest! Lest! Sonst seid ihr verloren!

On horseback you feel as if you’re moving in time to classical music; a camel seems to progress to the beat of a drum played by a drunk.