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

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 opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn't ask anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly.

I always thought it hadn't influenced me very much, but I heard from many people from England that many motives from German fairytales are to be found in my books.

Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.

Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them.

And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts.

A library book, I imagine, is a happy book.