Every German child learns to speak English in school.

Sometimes, when you’re sad you don’t know what to do, it helps to be angry. But then the tears come back again all the same, and you fall asleep with the salty taste of them on your lips.

And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.

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

You really don't understand the first thing about writing...for one thing, early in the morning is the worst possible time. the brain is like a wet sponge at that hour. And for another, real writing is a question of staring into space and waiting for the right ideas.

I like a composer called Henry Purcell, and I love to listen to Neil Young.

I pledge to set out to live a thousand lives between printed pages. I pledge to use books as doors to other minds, old and young, girl and boy, man and animal. I pledge to use books to open windows to a thousand different worlds and to the thousand different faces of my own world. I pledge to use books to make my universe spread much wider than the world I live in every day. I pledge to treat my books like friends, visiting them all from time to time and keeping them close.