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This is an Out of universe article about the quotes Cornelia Funke used in the very beginning of each chapter within the second book of the trilogy. For In-universe notable quotes from the book, see the chapter sections of the book page, or visit the character pages individually to check notable quotes by them.

The list of quotes used in the beginning of every Inkspell chapter.

Chapters 1-5[]

  • Ch. 1: Words made to Measure
He has been trying to sing Love into existence again And he has failed.
 
— Margaret Atwood, "Orpheus 2", Eating Fire
  • Ch. 2: Fool's Gold
For plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan, and it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that.
 
— Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer
  • Ch. 3: Dustfinger Comes Home
"What is this?" said the Leopard, "that is so 'sclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?"
 
— Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
  • Ch. 4: Silvertongue's Daughter
Was there only one world after all, which spent its time dreaming of others?
 
— Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
  • Ch. 5: Farid
He was stubborn as a mule, clever as a monkey, and nimble as a hare.
 
— Louis Pergaud, The War of the Buttons

Chapters 6-10[]

  • Ch. 6: The Inn of the Strolling Players
"Thank you," said Lucy, opening the box and taking out a match. "WATCH, EVERYONE!" she cried, her voice echoing round the White Flats. "WATCH! THIS IS GOODBYE TO BAD MEMORIES!"
 
— Philip Ridley, Dakota of the White Flats
  • Ch. 7: Meggie's Decision
The idea hovered and shivered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.
 
— Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
  • Ch. 8: The Minstrel Woman

The minstrel must go on his way,
As he has done so long,
And so a note of sad farewell Lingers around his song.
Ah, will I e'er come back again? My dear, alas, who knows?
The heavy hand of death is laid On many a budding rose.

 
— E. von Monsterberg, quoted from Musikanten, Gaukler und Vaganten
  • Ch. 9: Meggie's Reads
"Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves. "All books continue in the beyond ..."
 
— Italo Calvino, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller
  • Ch. 10: The Inkworld
Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.
 
— J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Chapters 11-15[]

  • Ch. 11: Gone
I woke up and knew he was gone. Straightaway I knew he was gone. When you love somebody you know these things.
 
— David Almond, Skellig
  • Ch. 12: Uninvited Guests
"You people with hearts," he said once, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful."
 
— L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz
  • Ch. 13: Fenoglio
"I do practice remembering, Nain," I said. "Writing and reading and remembering."
"That you should!" said Nain sharply. "Do you know what happens each time you write a thing down? Each time you name it? You sap its strength."
 
— Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Seeing Stone
  • Ch. 14: The Black Prince
"So bears can make their own souls .. ," she said. There was a great deal in the world to know.
 
— Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
  • Ch. 15: Strange Sounds on a Strange Night

How silent lies the world
Within fair twilight furled, Bringing such sweet relief!
A quiet room resembling, Where, without fear or trembling,
You sleep away day's grief.

 
— Matthias Claudius, Evening Song

Chapters 16-20[]

  • Ch. 16: Only a Lie
The blanket was there, but it was the boy's embrace that covered and warmed him.
 
— Jerry Spinelli, Maniac Magee
  • Ch. 17: A Present for Capricorn
"If he has been my father's enemy, I like him still less!" exclaimed the now really anxious girl.
"Will you not speak to him, Major Heyward, that I may hear his tones? Foolish though it may be, you have often heard me avow my faith in the tones of the human voice!"
 
— J. Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
  • Ch. 18: Mortola's Revenge

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it, if you die.

 
— Pablo Neruda, "The Dead Woman", The Captain's Verses
  • Ch. 19: Birthday Morning
"Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city ... Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills ..."
 
— Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
  • Ch. 20: Visitors from the Wrong Side of the Forest
Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It's only when its ambitions become too grandiose that it must be opposed, disciplined, sometimes – if necessary – brought down for a time. Then it will rise again, as it must.
 
— Clive Barker, Abarat

Chapters 21-25[]

  • Ch. 21: The Prince of Sighs
The man couldn't very well tell the king, "No, I won't go," for he had to earn his bread.
 
— Italo Calvino, "The King in the Basket", Italian Folk Tales
  • Ch. 22: Ten Years
Time is a horse that runs in the heart, a horse Without a rider on a road at night.
The mind sits listening and hears it pass.
 
— Wallace Stevens, "The Pure Good of Theory", Collected Poems
  • Ch. 23: Cold and White

I am like a goldsmith hammering day and night
Just so I can extend pain
Into a gold ornament as thin as a cicada's wing.

 
— Xi Murong, "Poetry's Value", Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry


Original source material in its native language:


我如金匠 日夜捶擊敲打
只為把痛苦延展成
薄如蟬翼的金飾

 
— 席慕蓉, "詩的價值", 無怨的青春
  • Ch. 24: In Elinor's Cellar

The lofty bookshelves sag
Under thousands of sleeping souls
Silence, hopeful
Every time I open a book, a soul is awakened.

 
— Xi Chuan, "Books", New Generation
  • Ch. 25: The Camp in the Forest
I thought it said in every tick: I am so sick, so sick, so sick;
O death, come quick, come quick, come quick.
 
— Frances Cornford, "The Watch", Collected Poems

Chapters 26-30[]

  • Ch. 26: Fenoglio's Plan

All I need is a sheet of paper
and something to write with, and then
I can turn the world upside down.

 
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Weisse und die Schwarze Kunst
  • Ch. 27: Violante

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any courser like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

 
— Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson
  • Ch. 28: The Wrong Words

If all you have of me is your red hair
and my wholehearted laughter
what else in me was good or ill may fare
like faded flowers drifting in the water.

 
— Paul Zech, after Francois Villon, "The Ballade of Little Florestan"
  • Ch. 29: New Masters

Tyrants smile with their last breath
For they know that at their death,
Tyranny just changes hands,
Serfdom lives on in their lands.

 
— Heinrich Heine, "King David"
  • Ch. 30: Cosimo
"Yes," said Abhorsen. "I am a necromancer, but not of the common kind. Where others of the art raise the dead, I lay them back to rest ..."
 
— Garth Nix, Sabriel

Chapters 31-35[]

  • Ch. 31: Elinor
Out in the world not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen, always did.
 
— Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
  • Ch. 32: The Wrong Man
So she placed the healing herb
In his mouth – he slept straightaway. She covered him most carefully.
He still slept on the livelong day.
 
— Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parsifal
  • Ch. 33: Fairydeath
The wind this evening, so eagerly playing
Sounds like blades that someone is swinging On the instrument of the trees densely growing ...
 
— Montale, Poems
  • Ch. 34: Cloud-Dancer's Message
Yes, my love,
This world of ours bleeds
With more pain than just the pain of love.
 
— Faiz Ahmed Faiz, "The Love I Gave You Once", An Elusive Dawn
  • Ch. 35: Ink-Medicine
The memory of my father is wrapped up in
White paper, like sandwiches taken for a day of work.
Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
Out of his hat, he drew love from his small body.
 
— Yehuda Amichai, "My Father", Isibongo

Chapters 36-40[]

  • Ch. 36: Screams

I want to see thirst In the syllables,
Touch fire In the sound;
Feel through the dark For the scream.

 
— Pablo Neruda, "Word", Five Decades
  • Ch. 37: Bloodstained Straw
Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be.
 
— Francis Spufford, The Child That Books Built
  • Ch. 38: An Audience for Fenoglio
"Lady Cora," he said, "sometimes one has to do things which are unpalatable. When great issues are involved one can't toy with the situation in silk gloves. No. We are making history."
 
— Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan
  • Ch. 39: Another Messenger
The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink.
 
Chinese proverb


Original source material in its native language:


好記性不如爛筆頭
 
中文俗語
  • Ch. 40: No Hope
The mustard-pot got up and walked over to his plate on thin silver legs that waddled like the owl's. ... "Oh, I love the mustard-pot!" cried the Wart. "Wherever did you get it?"
 
— T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone

Chapters 41-45[]

  • Ch. 41: The Captives
"Then you don't think he's dead, then?"
He put on his hat. "Now I may be wrong, of course, but I think he's very alive. Shows all the

symptoms of it. Go have a look at him, and when I come back we'll get together and decide."

 
— Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Ch. 42: A Familiar Face
Believe me. Sometimes when life looks to be at its grimmest, there's a light hidden at the heart of things.
 
— Clive Barker, Abarat
  • Ch. 43: Paper and Fire
"Good, well, if that's decided," came a weary voice from the opposite end of the dank hold. It was the gnokgoblin, still manacled and quite forgotten. "Then will someone please release me."
 
— Paul Stewart, Midnight Over Sanctaphrax
  • Ch. 44: The Burning Tree
Do you see the tongues of fire Darting, flickering higher and higher? Do you see the flames all dancing, Flaring, off the dry wood glancing?
 
— James Kriiss, "Fire"
  • Ch. 45: Poor Meggie
"Hello," said a soft, musical voice, and Leonardo looked up. In front of him stood the most beautiful young girl he had ever seen, a girl who might have frightened him but for the sad expression in her blue eyes. He knew about sadness.
 
— Eva Ibbotson, The Mystery of the Seventh Witch

Chapters 46-50[]

  • Ch. 46: A Knock on the Door
Lancelot considered his cup.

'He is inhuman,' he said at last. 'But why should he be human? Are angels supposed to be human?'

 
— T.H. White, The Ill-Made Knight
  • Ch. 47: Roxane

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red.
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

 
— William Shakespeare, Sonnets, No. 130
  • Ch. 48: The Castle by the Sea

It was a page he had
Found in the handbook
Of heartbreak.

 
— Wallace Stephens, "Madame la Fleurie", Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
  • Ch. 49: The Mill
We rode and rode and nothing happened. Wherever we went, it was calm, peaceful and beautiful. You could call it a quiet evening in the mountains, I thought, if that hadn’t been so wrong.
 
— Astrid Lindgren, The Brothers Lionheart
  • Ch. 50: The Best of All Nights
'Eat,' said Merlot.
'I couldn’t possibly,' said Despereaux, backing away from the book.
'Why?'
'Um,' said Despereaux, 'it would ruin the story.'
 
— Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

Chapters 51-55[]

  • Ch. 51: The Right Words
  • Ch. 52: Angry Orpheus
  • Ch. 53: The Barn Owl
  • Ch. 54: In the Dungeon of The Castle of Night
  • Ch. 55: A Letter from Fenoglio

Chapters 56-60[]

  • Ch. 56: The Wrong Ears
  • Ch. 57: Fire and Water
  • Ch. 58: Invisible as the Wind
  • Ch. 59: The Adderhead
  • Ch. 60: Fire on the Wall

Chapters 61-65[]

  • Ch. 61: In the Tower of The Castle of Night
  • Ch. 62: Where To?
  • Ch. 63: The Badger's Earth
  • Ch. 64: All Is Lost
  • Ch. 65: Lord of the Story

Chapters 66-70[]

  • Ch. 66: Blank Paper

We make for your sake such things as stand fast,
Through the ages these pages forever will last.
On blank paper the printer sets down what is heard,
Giving life to what's rife with the power of the word.

 
— Michael Kongehl, "On the White Art", Die Weisse und die Schwarze Kunst
  • Ch. 67: Kindness and Mercy

Here are we five or six strung up, you see,
And here the flesh that all too well we fed,
Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,
And we the bones grow dust and ash withal.

 
— François Villon, tr. A.C. Swinburne, Ballade of the Hanged Men
  • Ch. 68: A Visit
"If I cannot get me forth out of this house," he thought, "I am a dead man!"
 
— Robert Louis Stevenson, The Black Arrow
  • Ch. 69: The Night Before

True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air.

 
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
  • Ch. 70: The Pen and the Sword
"Of course not," said Hermione. "Everything we need is here on this paper."
 

Chapters 71-77[]

  • Ch. 71: Only a Dream
One day a young man said, "This tale about everybody having to die doesn't sit too well with me. I will go in search of the land where one never dies."
 
— Italo Calvino, "The Land Where One Never Dies", Italian Folk Tales
  • Ch. 72: An Exchange

The blue of my eyes was extinguished tonight
The red gold of my heart

 
— Georg Trakl, "By Night", Poems
  • Ch. 73: The Bluejay
The world existed to be read. And I read it.
 
— L. S. Schwartz, Ruined by Reading
  • Ch. 74: Farid's Hope
And now he was dead, his soul fled down to the Sunless Country and his body lying cold in the cold mud, somewhere in the city's wake.
 
— Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines
  • Ch. 75: Alone Again
Hope is the thing with feathers.
 
— Emily Dickinson, "Hope", The Poems of Emily Dickinson
  • Ch. 76: A New Poet
The joy of writing
The power of preserving, Revenge of a mortal hand.
 
— Wislawa Szymborska, "The Joy of Writing", View with a Grain of Sand
  • Ch. 77: Where Now?
The Giant rested back in his chair. "You've some stories left," he said. "I can smell them on your skin."
 
— Brian Patten, The Story Giant


Cornelia Funk's Inkworld Trilogy
Inkheart book reference quotes radio play film film soundtrack game
Inkspell book reference quotes radio play - - -
Inkdeath book reference quotes radio play - - -
Other written works (not all by Funke) Other canon
Inkheart Movie: Novelization Cornelia Funke - The Official Website -
Inkheart Movie: Storybook MirrorWorld by Cornelia Funke App
Inkheart Movie: Reader, Farid's Story The Colour of Revenge
Cornelia Funke: Inkheart, Wild Chicks and Ghosthunters: the Fantastical Visual Worlds from the Early Children's Books to Reckless
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