I stepped into the bookshop and breathed in that perfume of paper and magic that strangely no one had ever thought of bottling.

Don't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is a metaphor, not just for books but for ideas, for language, for knowledge, for beauty, for all the things that make us human, for collecting memory

I'm interested in everything. I don't see why Borges can't work along with Neil Gaiman, or Stephen King can't be mixed with Balzac. It's just storytelling; it's different ways of using codes and images and words and sounds.

It might have been that notion, or just chance, or its more flamboyant relative, destiny.

I stepped into the bookshop and breathed in that perfume of paper and magic that strangely no one had ever thought of bottling.

Resentment slowly poisoned my blood and I laughed at myself and my absurd hopes.