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

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.

Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals; it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.

I've been kind of submerged in my own little geographic location for a really long time in Venice Beach.

Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?

Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors.

A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.

Like Venice, Italy, New Orleans is a cultural treasure. And everyone who lived in the city should be allowed to come back. But that doesn't mean that they all should live in exactly the same spot that they lived before.

Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.

Kristina has been to the Maldives but never to Venice, and I have been to Venice but never to the Maldives.

Venice, Italy, survives 365 days out of every year in water; New Orleans can survive a few days of water if it has to.

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

A group of us started a community center in Santa Monica. We've tried different programs, and three have worked really well. A poetry group. Once a week we visit Venice High and talk to girls at risk.

I have an Italian comedy at the Venice Film Festival.

'The Merchant of Venice' is a straightforward, clear story, while 'The Winter's Tale,' as a general rule, is hard to present because there is so much plot.

As many times as I've seen 'The Merchant of Venice,' I always take Shylock's side. For all the hatred that guy is shown, he has a reason to hate in return. He's treated cruelly. And it's tragic that he learns to be intolerant because of what others do to him.

Coming to Hollywood at 19 and living in a single apartment with one other guy on Venice Beach was a massive contrast to my upbringing.

Everything in Venice is just a little bit creepy, as much as it's beautiful.

I became fascinated by marionettes, which I first saw in Venice. They were so haunted and so alive. You walked by them, and you could feel their presence, with their beady eyes just fixed on you.