Perhaps the story in the book is just the lid on a pan: It always stays the same, but underneath there's a whole world that goes on - developing and changing like our own world.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the surface story we see may hide deeper, evolving narratives beneath it.
Cornelia Funke's quote reflects on the layers of storytelling, suggesting that while the narrative presented in a book may seem static, it actually represents a dynamic world filled with growth and change beneath its surface. Just as in our lives, these underlying themes and experiences continuously evolve, enriching our understanding and interpretation of the narrative over time.
In practice
In a book club, we discussed the quote to analyze how characters develop.
Is there anything in the world better than words on the page? Magic signs, the voices of the dead, building blocks to make wonderful worlds better than this one, comforters, companions in loneliness. Keepers of secrets, speakers of the truth...all those glorious words.
Words were useless. At times, they might sound wonderful, but they let you down the moment you really needed them. You could never find the right words, never, and where would you look for them? The heart is as silent as a fish, however much the tongue tries to give it a voice.
Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.
She wanted to return to her dream. Perhaps it was still somewhere there behind her closed eyelids. Perhaps a little of its happiness still clung like gold dust to her lashes. Don't dreams in fairy tales sometimes leave a token behind?
Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?
Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.
A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.
Books--oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings." "I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.
It was a great place to write a novel about book burning, in the library basement.
And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.
We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind.
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