All the games were selected for them by supervisors and had to have some useful, educational purpose. The children learned these new games but unlearned something else in the process: they forgot to be happy, how to take pleasure in little things and last, but not least, how to dream.
Michael Ende in Momo
Wenn die Menschen wüssten, was der Tod ist, dann hätten sie keine Angst mehr vor ihm.
Michael Ende in Momo
Denn nach seiner Meinung kam alles Unglück der Welt von den vielen Lügen, den absichtlichen, aber auch den unabsichtlichen, die nur aus Eile oder Ungenauigkeit entstehen.
Michael Ende in Momo
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 in Momo
"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?"
Michael Ende in Momo
Animal lovers are a special breed of humans, generous of spirit, full of empathy, perhaps a little prone to sentimentality, and with hearts as big as a cloudless sky.
Einen Hund interessiert es nicht, ob du reich bist, oder arm, clever oder dumm, pfiffig oder doof. Wenn du ihm dein Herz schenkst, schenkt er dir seins.
Owning a dog always ended with this sadness because dogs just don't live as long as people do.
There's no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad owner.
He taught us the art of unqualified love. How to give it, how to accept it. Where there is that, most other pieces fall into place.
Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.
If you still think you're a young pup then you are, no matter what the calendar says.
And I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you.
I get that you're scared and that you've been hurt. But doing what is easy and safe is no way to live, and a life without passion and love is so far beneath what you deserve.
Sometimes I wanted to take a memory - one perfect memory - curl up in it, and go to sleep.
He winked at her. She giggled. And I threw up a little in my mouth.
Some victories are merely defeat wearing the wrong clothing.
Being dead wasn't supposed to hurt. Where was the fairness in that? If I was dead, the least the universe could do was make it painless.
Souls and thrones are irreconcilable.
Wait, so am I allowed to put my shirt back on? Or did you want me to remove my pants, too?
On our wedding night, I will cut out your tongue and swallow it. Then both tongues that spoke our marriage vows will belong to me, and I will be wed only to myself. You will most likely choke to death on your own blood, which will be unfortunate, but I will be both husband and wife and therefore not a widow to be pitied.
If you are too weak to stand being hit and too stupid to avoid it, then you deserve more pain.
Her spine was steel. Her heart was armor. Her eyes were fire.
"Told you I was going to mess up your make up," he said, a smug grin on his face.
"I think of you like a sister," he said. "Like a brilliant, violent, occasionally terrifying sister that I would follow to the ends of earth, in part because I respected her so much and in part because I feared what she would do to me of I refused. "
She nodded. "I would do awful things."
She nodded. "I would do awful things."
She plucked a rose and held it to her face. She hated the way roses smelled, their sweetness too fragile.
"I'm fine." It's a lie. I am not fine. My head is a symphony of pain, a sadistic master maestro conducting an opus of excruciating, devastating perfecting.
The price of living seems to always be death.
If you fail to report within the next 12 hours. you will be terminated. If you attack any humans, you will be terminated. If you attempt to remove the tracking device, you will be terminated. We look forward to working with you.
"'Be prepared', that's my motto." He smiled smugly at me. "That, and 'Sleep whenever possible.' Oh, and 'If you don't notice it's gone, what's the harm in me taking it?'"
I can't seem to keep my heart from leaking out of the cracks, like sand clutched in a fist.
Was it the happiest day of our lives? Probably not, if only because the truly happy days tend not to involve so much organisation, are rarely so public or so expensive. The happy ones sneak up, unexpected.
David Nicholls in Us
Perhaps grief is as much regret for what we have never had, as sorrow for what we have lost.
David Nicholls in Us
"I love you" is an interesting phrase, in that apparently small alterations–taking away the I, adding a word like lots or loads–render it meaningless.
David Nicholls in Us
Emotional intelligence, the perfect oxymoron!
David Nicholls in Us
From an evolutionary point of view, most emotions - fear, desire, anger - serve some practical purpose, but nostalgia is a useless, futile thing because it is a longing for something that is permanently lost.
David Nicholls in Us
Weißt du, die Leute lügen, wenn sie sagen, nichts sei so stark wie die Liebe. Das ist eine der größten und gemeinsten Lügen überhaupt. Liebe ist nicht stark. Sie ist so verletzlich wie nur irgendwas. Und wenn wir nicht achtgeben, dann zerbricht sie wie Glas.
He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph.
If you have to keep a secret it's because you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
"So - whatever happened to you?"
"Life. Life happened."
"Life. Life happened."
And then some days you wake up and everything's perfect.
I think reality is overrated.
And of course there is always joy in witnessing the joy of others.
People change, no use getting sentimental about it. Move on, find someone else.
He's a better person when she's around, and isn't that what friends are for, to raise you up and keep you at your best?
Envy was just the tax you paid on success.
She was reaching the limits of how much it's possible to change a man.
"Live each day as if it's your last", that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
The problem with telling people that they can do anything they want to do is that it is objectively, factually inaccurate. Otherwise the whole world would just be ballet dancers and pop stars.
David Nicholls in Us
Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.