My son always says I like very weird music.

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.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.