Leila

“It's asking us our names," Falkor reported.

"I'm Atreyu!" Atreyu cried.

"I'm Falkor!" cried Falkor.

The boy without a name was silent.

Atreyu looked at him, then took him by the hand and cried: "He's Bastian Balthazar Bux!"

"It asks," Falkor translated, "why he doesn't speak for himself."

"He can't," said Atreyu. "He has forgotten everything."

Falkor listened again to the roaring of the fountain.

"Without memory, it says, he cannot come in. The snakes won't let him through."

Atreyu replied: "I have stored up everything he told us about himself and his world. I vouch for him."

Falkor listened.

"It wants to know by what right?"

"I am his friend," said Atreyu.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

“Wer niemals ganze Nachmittage lang mit glühenden Ohren und verstrubbeltem Haar über einem Buch saß und las und las und die Welt um sich her vergaß, nicht mehr merkte, daß er hungrig wurde oder fror -
Wer niemals heimlich beim Schein einer Taschenlampe unter der Bettdecke gelesen hat, weil Vater oder Mutter oder sonst irgendeine besorgte Person einem das Licht ausknipste mit der gutgemeinten Begründung, man müsse jetzt schlafen, da man doch morgen so früh aus den Federn sollte -
Wer niemals offen oder im geheimen bitterliche Tränen vergossen hat, weil eine wunderbare Geschichte zu Ende ging und man Abschied nehmen mußte von den Gestalten, mit denen man gemeinsam so viele Abenteuer erlebt hatte, die man liebte und bewunderte, um die man gebangt und für die man gehofft hatte, und ohne deren Gesellschaft einem das Leben leer und sinnlos schien -
Wer nichts von alledem aus eigener Erfahrung kennt, nun, der wird wahrscheinlich nicht begreifen können, was Bastian jetzt tat.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

“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. Some people risk their lives to conquer a mountain peak. No one, not even they themselves, can really explain why. Others ruin themselves trying to win the heart of a certain person who wants nothing to do with them. Still others are destroyed by their devotion to the pleasures of the table. Some are so bent on winning a game of chance that they lose everything they own, and some sacrafice everything for a dream that can never come true. Some think their only hope of happiness lies in being somewhere else, and spend their whole lives traveling from place to place. And some find no rest until they have become powerful. In short, there are as many different passions as there are people.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

“Once someone dreams a dream, it can't just drop out of existence. But if the dreamer can't remember it, what becomes of it?”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story