Michael Ende
Michael Ende
Michael Andreas Helmuth Endewas a German writer of fantasy and children's fiction. He is best known for his epic fantasy The Neverending Story; other famous works include Momo and Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer. His works have been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 35 million copies, and adapted as motion pictures, stage plays, operas and audio books. Ende is one of the most popular and famous German authors of the 20th century, mostly due to...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionChildren's Author
Date of Birth12 November 1929
CountryGermany
love-you men matter
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.
lying reality names
Only the right name gives beings and things their reality. A wrong name makes everything unreal. That's what lies do.
people house design
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.
art thinking listening
Those who still think that listening isn’t an art should see if they can do it half as well.
time wealth form
Lots of things take time, and time was Momo's only form of wealth.
wise hate ambition
To be wise was to be above joy and sorrow, fear and pity, ambition and humiliation. It was to hate nothing and to love nothing, and above all to be utterly indifferent to the love and hate of others.
stars unique people
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.
years people world
People? People have been obsolete for years, They've made the world a place where there's no room left for their own kind.
heart mean broken
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.
names bores-you laughing
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.
children doors numbers
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.
may strange horror
Strange as it may seem, horror loses its power to frighten when repeated too often.
years long finding-yourself
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.
joy world able
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.