Ende Quotes & Sayings

You ask me what you will be there. But what are you here? What are you creatures of Fantastica? Dreams, poetic inventions, characters in a neverending story. Do you think you're real? Well yes, here in your world you are. But when you been through the Nothing, you won't be real anymore. You'll be unrecognizable. And you will be in another world. In that world, you Fantasticans won't be anything like yourselves. You will bring delusion and madness into the human world. — Michael Ende

Though Plente that is goddesse of rychesses hielde adoun with ful horn, and withdraweth nat hir hand, as many richesses as the see torneth upward sandes whan it is moeved with ravysshynge blastes, or elles as manye rychesses as ther schynen bryghte sterres in hevene on the sterry nyghtes; yit, for al that, mankende nolde nat cese to wepe wrecchide pleyntes. And al be it so that God resceyveth gladly hir preiers, and yyveth hem, as fool-large, moche gold, and apparayleth coveytous folk with noble or cleer honours; yit semeth hem haven igeten nothyng, but alwey hir cruel ravyne, devourynge al that they han geten, scheweth othere gapynges (that is to seyn, gapyn and desiren yit after mo rychesses.) What brydles myghte withholden to any certeyn ende the disordene covetise of men, whan evere the rather that it fletith in large yiftes, the more ay brenneth in hem the thurst of havynge? Certes he that qwakynge and dredful weneth hymselven nedy, he ne lyveth nevermo ryche. — Geoffrey Chaucer

One day, you don't feel like doing anything. Nothing interests you, everything bores you. Feel more and more empty inside, more and more dissatisfied with yourself and the world in general. Then even that feeling wears off, and you don't feel anything anymore. You become completely indifferent to what goes on around you ... You forget how to laugh and cry - you're cold inside and incapable of loving anything or anyone ... There's no going back ... The disease has a name. It's called deadly tedium. — Michael Ende

That brings me to the real reason for the title: Where does that which happens during reading a book take place? ( ... ) Does not every reader, whether he wants it or not, bring ( ... ) his own experiences and thoughts into the process of reading? ( ... ) Is not every book a mirror in which the reader is reflected, whether he knows it or not? And is not every reader a mirror in which the book is reflected? — Michael Ende

All dwelling in one house are strange brothers three,
as unlike as any three brothers could be,
yet try as you may to tell brother from brother,
you'll find that the trio resemble each other.
The first isn't there, though he'll come beyond doubt.
The second's departed, so he's not about.
The third and the smallest is right on the spot,
and manage without him the others could not.
Yet the third is a factor with which to be reckoned
because the first brother turns into the second.
You cannot stand back and observe number three,
for one of the others is all you will see.
So tell me, my child, are the three of them one?
Or are there but two? Or could there be none?
Just name them, and you will at once realize
that each rules a kingdom of infinite size.
They rule it together and are it as well.
In that, they're alike, so where, do they dwell? — Michael Ende

There was happiness of laughter.
Petra Hermans + Michael Ende
November 20, 2016
Amen — Petra Hermans

Even when I was caught in the web, I didn't give up hope. And as you see, I was right. — Michael Ende

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, sed non inveni, nisi in hoexkens ende boexkens"
"I have sought everywhere for peace, but I have found it not save in a little nook and in a little book. — Thomas A Kempis

Een onberispelijke Levenswandel
bevraagt het Geweten :
Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
Religion of Blue Circle
December 6, 1972 - May 2053
The Neverending Story - Babaji
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende
Amen — Petra Hermans

If you stop to think about it, you'll have to admit that all the stories in the world consist essentially of twenty-six letters. The letters are always the same, only the arrangement varies. From letters words are formed, from words sentences, from sentences chapters, and from chapters stories. — Michael Ende

Nothing that is historical can relate itself, from its own ground, to anything messianic. Therefore, the Kingdom of God is not the telos of the historical dynamic; it cannot be established as a goal. From the standpoint of history, it is not the goal but the terminus [Ende]. Therefore, the secular order cannot be built on the idea of the Divine Kingdom, and theocracy has no political but only a religious meaning. — Walter Benjamin

What's so clever about working hard ?" he said to Momo. "Anyone can get rich quick that way, but who wants to look like the people who've sold themselves body and soul for money's sake ? Well, they can count me out. Even if there are times when I don't have the price of a cup of coffee, I'm still me. Guido's still Guido! — Michael Ende

Human passions have mysterious ways, in children as well as grown-ups. Those affected by them can't explain them, and those who haven't known them have no understanding of them at all. — Michael Ende

Every real story is a never ending story. — Michael Ende

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. — Michael Ende

Her feelings of fear and helplessness had reached such a pitch that they were suddenly transformed into their opposites. Having overcome them, she felt corageous and self-confident enough to tackle any power on earth; more precisely, she had ceased to worry about herself. — Michael Ende

Maybe all the people who say ghosts don't exist are just afraid to admit that they do. — Michael Ende

There are certain treasures that kill you if you can't share them with others. — Michael Ende

At certain junctures in the course of existence, unique moments occur when everyone and everything, even the most distant stars, combine to bring about something that could not have happened before and will never happen again. Few people know how to take advantage of these critical moments, unfortunately, and they often pass unnoticed. When someone does recognize them, however, great things happen in the world. — Michael Ende

You wish for something, you've wanted it for years, and you're sure you want it, as long as you know you can't have it. But if all at once it looks as though your wish might come true, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had never wished for any such thing. — Michael Ende

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. — Michael Ende

You see, Momo ... it's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept ... And then you hurry. You work faster and faster, and every time you look up there seems to be just as much to sweep as before, and you try even harder ... , and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop-and still the street stretches away in from of you. — Michael Ende

Anyone who still thinks that listening is nothing special should simply try to do it half as well. — Michael Ende

To the makying of bookes of gardenyng there is noe ende. — Thomas Hill

When a person is only half an ass like me, and not a complete one, she senses certain things. — Michael Ende

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. — Michael Ende

Lots of things take time, and time was Momo's only form of wealth. — Michael Ende

He's a good old sort. If only he weren't plumb crazy! — Michael Ende

You must live your story. — Michael Ende

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

You've saved my life all the same- even if I had something to do with it. — Michael Ende

When you know as much as we do, nothing matters. — Michael Ende

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. — Michael Ende

Michael Ende + Petra Hermans
There is joy of life.
Amen
November 20, 2016 — Petra Hermans

Momo listened to everyone and everything - even to the rain and the wind and the pine trees - and all of them spoke to her after their own fashion. — Michael Ende

They look like good, strong hands. — Michael Ende

And much later, long after Bastian had returned to his world, in his maturity and
even in his old age, this joy never left him entirely. Even in the hardest moments of hislife he preserved a lightheartedness that made him smile and that comforted others. — Michael Ende

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. — Michael Ende

The human world is full of weak-minded people, who think they're as clever as can be and are convinced that it's terribly important to persuade even the children that Fanstastica doesn't exist. — Michael Ende

Just as the setting sun turned the clouds to liquid gold. — Michael Ende

While progressing in this way, with a dirty street ahead of him and a clean one behind, he often had grand ideas. They were ideas that couldn't easily be put into words, though - ideas as hard to define as a half-remembered scent or a colour seen in a dream. — Michael Ende

Because of me the whole human history changes.
Religion of Blue Circle
Religious Leader Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
September 6, 2016
Babaji
Jan Goossens and Miet Weijters
The Archangel Gabriel
God
Amen
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende — Petra Hermans

He was handsome and strong, but somehow that wasn't enough for him. He also felt the need to be tough and inured to hardship... But how was he to come by that quality in this luminous garden, where all manner of fruit was to be had for the picking? — Michael Ende

There are many kinds of delusion. — Michael Ende

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. — Michael Ende

Now, for the first time ever, a story had escaped his control. It had taken on a life of its own, and all the imagination in the world would be insufficient to halt it. He felt numb. — Michael Ende

Nothing can change for them, because they themselves can't change anymore. — Michael Ende

And there in the snow lay the pictures, like jewels bedded in white silk. They were paper-thin sheets of colored transparent isin glass of every size and shape, some round, some square, some damaged, some intact, some as large as church windows, others as small as snuffbox miniatures. — Michael Ende

Nothing can happen more than once, but everything must happen one day; Over hill and dale, wood and stream, my dying voice will blow away ... — Michael Ende

Its whole expanse was covered with tall, juicy grass, and when the wind blew, great waves passed over it with a sound like troubled water. (The Grassy Ocean) — Michael Ende

Reluctantly Bastian's thoughts turned back to reality. He was glad the Neverending Story had nothing to do with that.
He didn't like books in which dull, cranky writers describe humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people. Reality gave him enough of that kind of thing, why should he read about it? Besides, he couldn't stand it when a writer tried to convince him of something. And these humdrum books, it seemed to him, were always trying to do just that.
Bastian liked books that were exciting or funny, or that made him dream. Books where made-up characters had marvelous adventures, books that made him imagine all sorts of things.
Because one thing he was good at, possibly the only thing, was imagining things so clearly that he almost saw and heard them. — Michael Ende

I am very right about my Right.
Petra Hermans - Michael Ende — Petra Hermans

It's like this. Sometimes, when you've a very long street ahead of you, you think how terribly long it is and feel sure you'll never get it swept. And then you start to hurry. You work faster and faster and every time you look up there seems to be just as much left to sweep as before, and you try even harder, and you panic, and in the end you're out of breath and have to stop
and still the street stretches away in front of you. That's not the way to do it.
You must never think of the whole street at once, understand? You must only concentrate on the next step, the next breath, the next stroke of the broom, and the next, and the next. Nothing else.
That way you enjoy your work, which is important, because then you make a good job of it. And that's how it ought to be.
And all at once, before you know it, you find you've swept the whole street clean, bit by bit. what's more, you aren't out of breath. That's important, too ... (28-29) — Michael Ende

With them the individual counted for nothing. No one was irreplaceable, because they drew no distinction between one man and another... In this community there was harmony, but no love. — Michael Ende

But there was another thing Momo couldn't quite understand - a thing that hadn't happened until very recently. More and more often these days, children turned up with all kinds of toys you couldn't really play with: remote-controlled tanks that trundled to and fro but did little else, or space rockets that whizzed around on strings but go nowhere, or model robots that waddled along with eyes flashing and heads swiveling but that was all. — Michael Ende

A person's reason for doing someone a good turn matters as much as the good turn itself. — Michael Ende

Das war ein vorspeil nur; That was only a prelude; dort wo man Buecher verbrennt, Where one burns books, vebrennt man auch am Ende One will also burn people Menchen. Eventually. — Heinrich Heine

And not only of even mainly because of the protection it had given him - it was thanks to his own strength, after all, that he had stood up to all the hardships and terrors and the loneliness of his Quest - but as long as he had carried the emblem, he had never been at a loss for what to do. Like a mysterious compass, it had guided his thoughts in the right direction. And now that was changed, now he had no secret power to lead him. He had no idea what to do, but he couldn't bear to stand there as though paralyzed. — Michael Ende

... Without memory how will you ever find your way back to where you came from? — Michael Ende

It was a wonderful feeling, a sense of release and boundless freedom that he had never known before. He was beyond the reach of all the things that had weighed him down and hemmed him in. — Michael Ende

No," he said in his deep, rumbling voice. "It means that you must do what you really and truly want. And nothing is more difficult."
"What I really and truly want? What do you mean by that?"
"It's your own deepest secret and you yourself don't know it."
"How can I find out?"
"By going the way of your wishes, from one to another, from first to last. It will take you to what you really and truly want."
"That doesn't sound so hard," said Bastian.
"It is the most dangerous of all journeys."
"Why?" Bastian asked. "I'm not afraid."
"That isn't it," Grograman rumbled. "It requires the greatest honesty and vigilance, because there's no other journey on which it's so easy to lose yourself forever. — Michael Ende

But time is life, and life exists in our hearts, and the more of it that the people saved, the less they actually had. — Michael Ende

To ther Hed Wizzard, Unsene Universety, Greatings, I hop you ar well, I am sending to you won Escarrina Smith, shee hath thee maekings of wizzardery but whot may be ferther dun wyth hyr I knowe not shee is a gode worker and clene about hyr person allso skilled in diuerse arts of thee howse, I will send Monies wyth hyr May you liv longe and ende youre days in pese, And oblije, Esmerelder Weatherwaxe (Mss) Wytch. — Terry Pratchett

Bastian had climbed a dune of purplish-red sand and all around him he saw nothing but hill after hill of every imaginable color. Each hill revealed a shade or tint that occured in no other. The nearest was cobalt blue, another was saffron yellow, then came crimson red, then indigo, apple green, sky blue, orange, peach, mauve, turquoise blue, lilac, moss green, ruby red, burnt umber, Indian yellow, vermillion, lapis lazuli, and so on from horizon to horizon. And between the hill, separating color from color, flowed streams of gold and silver sand. — Michael Ende

There are people who can never go to Fantastica," said Mr. Coreander, "and others who can, but who stay there forever. And there are just a few who fo to fantastica and come back. Like you. And they make both world well again. — Michael Ende

Atreyu was fighting not for himself, but for his friend, whom he was trying to save by defeating him. — Michael Ende

Strange as it may seem, horror loses its power to frighten when repeated too often. — Michael Ende

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

What I've started I must finish. I've gone too far to turn back. Regardless of what may happen, I have to go forward. — Michael Ende

Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.
Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.
Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. — Michael Ende

People think they touched me. It says.
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende
Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
Religion of Blue Circle
Worldpoet 546
September 28, 2016 — Petra Hermans

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. — Michael Ende

You have to know, to see with whom
you are Dancing Through All Ages,
The Love Of My Life,
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende
Religious Leader Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
Our One Neverending Story — Petra Hermans

What will happen when my heart stops beating?" Momo asked.
When that moment comes," said the professor, "time will stop for you as well. Or rather, you will retrace your steps through time, through all the days and nights, myths and years of your life, until you go out through the great, round, silver gate you entered by."
What will I find on the other side?"
The home of the music you've sometimes faintly heard in the distance, but by then you'll be part of it. You yourself will be a note in its mighty harmonies. — Michael Ende

He felt very lonely, yet there was a kind of pride in his loneliness. — Michael Ende

I did everything wrong," he said. "I misunderstood everything. Moon Child gave me so much, and all I did with it was harm, harm to myself and harm to Fantastica."
Dame Eyola gave him a long look.
No," she said. "I don't believe so. You went the way of wishes, and that is never straight. You went the long way around, but that was your way. And do you know why? Because you are one of those who can't go back until they have found the fountain from which springs the Water of Life. And that's the most secret place in Fantastica. There's no simple way of getting there."
After a short silence she added: "But every way that leads there is the right one. — Michael Ende

My will can control anything that's empty. — Michael Ende

When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts. — Michael Ende

They never understood
one single little thing
of my life.

Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende
Our One Neverending Story — Petra Hermans

You must let what happens happen. Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise. — Michael Ende

All that matters in life," the grey man went on, "is to climb the ladder of success, amount to something, own things. When a person climbs higher than the rest, amounts to more, owns more things, everything else comes automatically: friendship, love, respect, et cetera ... "
"Isn't there anyone who loves you?" Momo whispered. — Michael Ende

There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved. — Michael Ende

The House of Change... is bigger inside than out. — Michael Ende

People? People have been obsolete for years, They've made the world a place where there's no room left for their own kind. — Michael Ende

If you do, you'll be running an incalculable risk. It will be up to you whether the world begins to live again or stands still forever and a day. Are you really prepared to take that risk? — Michael Ende

Time is the very essence of life itself, and life exists in our hearts. — Michael Ende

Wishes cannot be summoned up or kept away at will. They come from deeper within us than good or bad intentions. And they spring up unannounced. — Michael Ende

Nothing is lost. . .Everything is transformed. — Michael Ende

All the world's misfortunes stemmed from the countless untruths, both deliberate and unintentional, which people told because of haste or carelessness. — Michael Ende

Little creatures they were who seemed to have been blown from glass. — Michael Ende

But that is another story and shall be told another time. — Michael Ende

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in switch licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So Priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke — Geoffrey Chaucer

Love on the Rocks with Love and Lots of Ice Cream
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende and
Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
Our One Neverending Story
Religion Of Blue Circle
Forever Young! — Petra Hermans

Bastian looked at the book.
'I wonder,' he said to himself, '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.'
Suddenly an almost festive mood came over him.
He settled himself down, picked up the book, opened it to the first page, and began to read ... — Michael Ende

Adagio Tilburg and an Icy Sick Majumder Melon
Betrayed Together : The Whole Holocaust.
I am Smarter : I Survived The Second Holocaust.
Petra Cecilia Maria Hermans
Religion of Blue Circle
Babaji
Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende
Jan Goossens
September 6, 2016 — Petra Hermans

One may enter the literary parlor via just about any door, be it the prison door, the madhouse door, or the brothel door. There is but one door one may not enter it through, which is the child room door. The critics will never forgive you such. The great Rudyard Kipling is one of a number of people to have suffered from this. I keep wondering to myself what this peculiar contempt towards anything related to childhood is all about. — Michael Ende

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

There were thousands and thousands of forms of joy in the world, but that all were essentially one and the same, namely, the joy of being able to love. — Michael Ende

And if someone felt that his life had been an utter failure, and that he himself was only one among millions of wholly unimportant people who could be replaced as easily as broken windowpanes, he would go and pour out his heart to Momo. And, even as he spoke, he would come to realize by some mysterious means that he was absolutely wrong: that there was only one person like himself in the whole world, and that, consequently, he mattered to the world in his own particular way.
Such was Momo's talent for listening. — Michael Ende

The Glory was entrusted to you, you weren't given permission to pass it on as you see fit. — Michael Ende