Literary Birthday – 12 November – Michael Ende

Michael Ende was born 12 November 1929, and died 28 August 1995.

Michael Ende Quotes

1. Every real story is a never ending story.
2. When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.
3. Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.
4. If you stop to think about it, you’ll have to admit that all the stories in the world consist essentially of twenty-six letters. The letters are always the same, only the arrangement varies. From letters words are formed, from words sentences, from sentences chapters, and from chapters stories.
5. Those who still think listening isn’t an art should see if they can do it half as well.
6. A story can be new and yet tell about olden times. The past comes into existence with the story.
7. Human passions have mysterious ways, in children as well as grown-ups. Those affected by them can’t explain them, and those who haven’t known them have no understanding of them at all.
8. Without a past you can’t have a future.
9. Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem an eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.
10. But that’s another story and shall be told another time.

Michael Ende was a German writer of fantasy and children’s fiction. He is best known for his epic fantasy The Neverending Story. His works have been widely translated and have sold more than 35 million copies. They have also been adapted as motion pictures, stage plays, operas, and audio books. Ende was one of the most popular and famous German authors of the 20th century, and his writing is often described as ‘a surreal mixture of reality and fantasy’.

Image of Michael Ende from publisher Thienemann (https://www.thienemann-esslinger.de/autor/michael-ende-87).

by Amanda Patterson

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