They’re my children, my inky children, and I look after them well.

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.

To never let the other forget who they are – love is also about that.

Sometimes Fox thought all the men she knew had the dreams and wishes of nine-year-old boys – at least all the men she liked.

You humans love mirrors. You have to constantly make sure you still have the same face. Nothing scares you more than if someone changes it.

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.

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...

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

Yes, Mo would come. Meggie could think of nothing else as Fenoglio led her away with him, his arm around her as if he could really protect her from Capricorn and Basta and all the others. But he couldn’t. Would Mo be able to protect her? Of course not. He mustn’t come, she thought. Please. Perhaps he won’t be able to find his way in again! He mustn’t come. Yet there was nothing she wanted more, nothing in the whole wide world.

A wedding, a daughter in payment, and a white dress to hide all the bloody battlefields.