Nothing is lost. . .Everything is transformed.

Michael Ende

Categorized in : Lost Transformed Lost Everything

I wonder, what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures, deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.

adventure country book

For a while Bastian stood motionless. He was so stunned by what he had just heard that he couldn't decide what to do... What he had hoped was his ruin and what he had feared his salvation.

ruins salvation heard

As they advanced (towards the fountain) one after another of Bastian's Fastastican gifts fell away from him. The strong, handsome, fearless hero became the small, fat, timid boy. (...) But then he jumped into the crystal-clear water... He drank till his thrist was quenched. And joy filled him from head to foot, the joy of living and the joy of being himself. He was new born. And the best part of it was that he was now the very person he wanted to be. If he had been free to choose, he would have chosen to be no one else.

strong hero boys

Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.

names lying reality

People never seemed to notice that, by saving time, they were losing something else. No one cared to admit that life was becoming ever poorer, bleaker and more monotonous. The ones who felt this most keenly were the children, because no one had time for them any more. But time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. And the more people saved, the less they had.

monotonous-life heart children

No architect troubled to design houses that suited people who were to live in them, because that would have meant building a whole range of different houses. It was far cheaper and, above all, timesaving to make them identical.

design house people

There were doors that looked like large keyholes, others that resembled the entrances to caves, there were golden doors, some were padded and some were studded with nails, some were paper-thin and others as thick as the doors of treasure houses; there was one that looked like a giant's mouth and another that had to be opened like a drawbridge, one that suggested a big ear and one that was made of gingerbread, one that was shaped like an oven door, and one that had to be unbuttoned.

giants house doors

Just as the setting sun turned the clouds to liquid gold.

gold sun clouds

But that is another story and shall be told another time.

never-ending-story another-time stories

He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest — he had seen beautiful things and horrible things — but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.

horrible quests beautiful

He wanted to be loved for being just what he was. In this community of Yskalnari there was harmony, but no love. He no longer wanted to be the greatest, strongest or cleverest. He had left all that far behind. He longed to be loved just as he was, good or bad, handsome or ugly, clever or stupid, with all his faults - or possibly because of them. But what was he actually? He no longer knew. So much have been given to him in Fantastica, and now, among all these gifts and powers, he could no longer find himself.

community stupid clever

She became so important to them that they wondered how they had ever managed without her in the past. And the longer she stayed with them the more indispensable she became, so indispensable in fact that their one fear was that she might some day move on.

day important fear past

Those who still think listening isn't an art should see if they can do it half as well.

see think listening art

All the beasts in Howling Forest were safe in their caves, nests, and burrows.

beasts forest were safe

She would sit by herself in the middle of the old stoe amphitheatre, with the sky's starry vault overhead, and simply listen to the great silence around her.

she great silence sky