And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.

I just did a picture book called The Wildest Brother on Earth, and you will find both of my children in there.

I don't like to eat the same dish every day, so I read very different things.

There are not so many mythical creatures from Inkheart.

If I was a book, I would like to be a library book, so I would be taken home by all different sorts of kids.

I always thought it hadn't influenced me very much, but I heard from many people from England that many motives from German fairytales are to be found in my books.

Every German child learns to speak English in school.

And I always read the English translation and always have conversations with my translator, for example about the names. I always have to approve it.

I love to read aloud.

Every reader knows about the feeling that characters in books seem more real than real people.

I like a composer called Henry Purcell, and I love to listen to Neil Young.

My daughter, Anna, is almost 15, and my son, Ben, is almost 10.

Oh, I think every author is inspired by all of the books that she reads.

And I plan to write a sequel to Dragon Rider.

I like to visit my horse, have a walk with my dog.

I always wanted to ride a dragon myself, so I decided to do this for a year in my imagination.

They are shooting The Thief Lord in Venice at the moment.

Everything gets to me. I'm very sentimental.

And my father always took me to the library. We were both book addicts.

I live in Hamburg; that's in the north. And I live on the outskirts of town. It looks like countryside.

My grandmother told stories; she was very good at that.

I love to read, I love to watch movies, and I love to be with my children.

My son always says I like very weird music.

I wish I had more time to visit schools.

I will try to write books until I drop dead.

Yes, I always imagined living in other places.

I have two Iceland horses, a very hairy dog called Looney, and a guinea pig.

Second, there are so many magical places in books that you can't go to, like Hogwarts and Middle Earth, so I wanted to set a story in a place where children can actually go.

A library book, I imagine, is a happy book.

Children theyre the same everywhere. Greedy little creatures but the best listeners in the world any world. The very best of all.

Nothing is more frightening than a fear you cannot name.

Reality is a fragile thing.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

English football has just had a transfer window imposed for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how managers cope with the squads they have until it re-opens.

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

Sometimes I feel I can't quite master my written and spoken Spanish, because I'm too much a student of English. I would need another lifetime to learn it.

It has since been agreed that speeches given in English will be translated into French and vice versa, and even into German and Italian when necessary. No doubt translations into Esperanto will also soon be in demand.

I'm learning English at the moment. I can say 'Big Ben', 'Hello Rodney', 'Tower Bridge' and 'Loo'.

No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.

The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.

Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

I think the biggest difficulty is that when I'm here in America, there's a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning.

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

A Shakespeare could have arisen only on English soil. In the same way, your great dramatists and poets express the nature and essence of the Norwegian people, but they also express that which is universally valid for all mankind.