How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Oh, Basta can't write," replied Capricorn calmly. "None of my men can either read or write. I've forbidden them to learn. But I got one of my maidservants to teach me how to read. And when there's something to be written the reader does it." (17.84)
Capricorn keeps his men illiterate, which sounds like a great idea… to him, anyway. But the fact that Capricorn decided that it was worth teaching himself to read tells us that he recognizes the power of the written word, and he wants to keep this power away from his men in order to have an edge over them. It sounds very Capricorn-esque when we put it that way: more power for him, less for others. Writing just happens to be an expression of this dynamic in this instance.
Quote #8
But Mo shook his head. "I don't believe he will have thought of Fenoglio. You know, it's a funny thing about writers. Most people don't stop to think of books being written by people much like themselves. They think that writers are all dead long ago—they don't expect to meet them in the street or out shopping. They know their stories but not their names, and certainly not their faces." (22.38)
Mo makes an interesting point here: a lot of people are used to thinking of books first, and their writers second, if at all. We wonder whether Cornelia Funke, who wrote Inkheart, was slyly poking fun at situations where her readers have encountered her in public but not realized it was her. Or maybe she's nostalgic for a time when that was true, back before star writers like J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Neil Gaiman could go on tours to meet thousands of adoring fans.
Quote #9
"I'm only a kind of book doctor […]. That's a very different trade. A famous writer once wrote, 'An author can be seen as three things: a storyteller, a teacher, or a magician—but the magician, the enchanter, is in the ascendant.' I always thought he was right about that." (59.5)
Mo shares his thoughts on the difference between taking care of books and writing them. When it comes to caring for books, he's a pro—he can lengthen their lives, give them new covers, and so on—but he doesn't think of himself as an author at all. Maybe there's magic in the way Mo relates to stories and writing, since his voice can bring forth characters and objects from the pages of books, but he hasn't got an author's magic.