Cornelia Maria Funke is a German author born on December 10, 1958. She writes Children’s Fiction. She is famous for the Inkheart trilogy (originally in German: Tintenwelt-Trilogie). It was published between 2004- 2008 in the United Kingdom. Her style of writing is mainly adventure and fantasy.
Many of her books have been translated into English. And other languages. She has sold around 20 million copies worldwide. Her books are written in a style that celebrates childhood and the innate strength that every child possesses that we adults often fail to notice.
Her picture book The Book No One Ever Read starts with: “Every book longs to tell its story.” She states that to write a good book on her homepage, you just need a good idea. And this is what you get from her books. Ideas that reflect reality in a surreal environment. The ideas not only stimulate a child’s imagination but have the power even to capture an adult’s mind.
Cornelia Funke Quotes
“The truth’s not pretty of course. No one likes to look it in the face.” – Cornelia Funke
The truth is still the, even if no one believes it.
A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it.
The lie is temporary. No matter how much you try to hide the truth, one day or another it will come out in some way or another.
Therefore its said truth is not pretty of course. Because people are not angry when you speak the truth on their faces, they are angry because it contradicts the lie they live.
“Some books should be tasted, some devoured but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” – Cornelia Funke
Books are magical keys to open up worlds and change perspective. There are varieties of books. All books carry a different story within them. All stories read give us a new perspective to look at the world at. Similarly, our life owns many stories.
Imagine our memories as books.
This would have let us remember every tragic part of the story even. But as we are human and not books, you don’t necessarily have to remember every memory.
Cherish good memories, skip bad memories, but keep learning from your mistakes by constantly remembering them again and again.
“A reader doesn’t see the characters in a story; he feels them.”- Cornelia Funke
While reading a book, we unknowingly put ourselves into the character. In the climax, our heart pounds out and our finger becomes moist and with much greater unsurety we turn over the page.
The antagonist is setting up a trap. You wish to prevent the protagonist from walking into it, but you can’t.
You are helpless, totally at the mercy of the writer. All you can do is turn the next page.
“Sometimes it’s a good thing we don’t remember things half as well as books do.” – Cornelia Funke
It’s a blessing in disguise that the human brain has limited memory and brain function. And an exciting part of our memory is very resilient. Imagine how would you feel if get reminded of your haunting past now and then?
Exactly it would have been very difficult to move ahead in life.
Our memories could have destroyed our peace of mind. In this case, we are very lucky in contrast to books to have limited memory space.
“Sometimes when you are so sad you don’t know what to do, it helps to be angry.” – Cornelia Funke
Sadness is like an ocean.
Sometimes we drowned and sometimes we are forced to swim. Forced to swim here means we have some encouraging factors in life that force us to get up and not to give up so easily.
When we start drowning, we find nothing to hold for support. During this timewe become strong because we know there is no one to rely upon. We have to do things alone to survive.
While becoming strong, we get frustrated and furious sometimes. Because no matter how much you try to suppress your sadness, someday it vent out in form of anger.
“Because fear kills everything. Mo had once told her “your mind, your heart, your imagination” – Cornelia Funke
Mo means “Motus Operandi” which means having your signature, generally something unique only to you.
You fear most has no power, it is your fear that has the power. We all have a fear to lose something.
But the power of our fear makes us helpless and kills everything inside us. It forbid us to enjoy the present moment as our mind constantly lingers in the future.
Fear can kill everything. Except for your mind that picturizes imagination and your heart that creates instincts. Have your signature imagination and instinct, it will help you to overcome your fear and let go of it.
“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?” – Cornelia Funke
While writing the book the author has to be three people at a time: Writer, character, and reader.
When the writer scripted the plots of the book, he gave life to the character through his living words.
The lively character in the story connects to the reader in the real world. This sync which the writer created between the reader and character makes the reader believes that the characters in the book are more real than the real people around.
Real people make their plots and planning according to the situation. But the characters portray his play according to the reader’s plot and this makes the reader feel connected to the character.
As he feels that he would have done somewhat similar things as the character did if he would have been in the same situation.
“Books have to be heavy because the whole world’s inside them.” – Cornelia Funke
The more you read that you read, the more things that you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go.
In short, the book carries the whole world inside it, so it should be heavy. Reading books opens your mind to a new level of perspective.
You start responding to every stimulus of the world with a greater sense of knowledge. Books provide you with in-depth knowledge about every subject of the world which boosts your confidence to face the world with a new aspiration.
“Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than the real people.” – Cornelia Funke
While writing the book the author has to be three people at a time: Writer, character, and reader.
When the writer scripted the plots of the book, he gave life to the character through his living words.
The lively character in the story connects to the reader in the real world. This sync which the writer created between the reader and character makes the reader believes that the characters in the book are more real than the real people around.
Real people make their plots and planning according to the situation. But the characters portray his play according to the reader’s plot and this makes the reader feel connected to the character.
As he feels that he would have done somewhat similar things as the character did if he would have been in the same situation.
“I always wanted to ride a dragon myself, so I decided to do this for a year in my imagination.” – Cornelia Funke
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
We don’t know about the future and it’s unpredictable even.
But imagining for a happy future gives us a positive vibe and we push our present territory a little to achieve it tomorrow.
While you are imagining, you are producing a future for yourself. You can never feature in the future you cannot picture today.