“Once you touch the trappings of monarchy, like opening an Egyptian tomb, the inside is liable to crumble.”

“I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.”

“You want to know how Egyptians pulled the brains out of mummies. or built the pyramids, or cursed King Tut's tomb? My dad's your man.”

“The snake that can't peel off its skin can't grow. The soul is trapped inside the body; just like a tree inside a seed.”

“A rose trapped inside a fist.”

“What I have found to be unanimous about people is that they guard and act like they don’t want you to touch the places inside them that they are the most desperate for you to touch.”

“When I was young I once found a book in a Dutch translation, The 'Leaves of Grass'. It was the first time a book touched me by its feeling of freedom and open spaces, the way the poet spoke of the ocean by describing a drop of water in his hand. Walt Whitman was offering the world an open hand (now we call it democracy) and my 'Monument for Walt Whitman' became this open hand with mirrors, so you can see inside yourself.”

“Liesel's blood had dried inside of her. It crumbled. She almost broke into pieces on the steps.”

“Trapped like a trap in a trap”

“I'm a leading man trapped inside a bad guy's body.”