Best 488 quotes in «fairy tales quotes» category

IN MY DEFENSE, I didn’t mean to start the Apocalypse. It wasn’t just my personal aversion to oblivion; I had a clear financial motive: The end of the world is bad for business.

I noticed him right away. No, it wasn’t his lean, rugged face. Or the dark waves of shiny hair that hung just a little too long on his forehead. It wasn’t the slim, collarless biker jacket he wore, hugging his lean shoulders. It was the way he stood. The confident way he waited in the cafeteria line to get a slice of pizza. He didn’t saunter. He didn’t amble. He stood at the center, and let the other people buzz around him. His stance was straight and sure.

In the colored fairy books of Andrew Lang (The Red Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, etc.), there is a figure who has always intrigued me: the Hen Wife, related to the witch, the seer, and the herbalist, but different from them too: a distinct and potent archetype of her own, an enchanted figure beneath a humble white apron. We find her dispensing wisdom and magic in the folk tales of the British Isles and far beyond (all the way to Russia and China): a woman who is part of the community, not separate from it like the classic "witch in the woods"; a woman who is married, domesticated like her animal familiars, and yet conversant with women's mysteries, sexuality, and magic.

In the end it wins a king's daughter, who is expected to burn its hedgehog-skin at night, and does so, and finds herself clasping a beautiful prince, all singed and soot-black. Christabel says, 'And if he regretted his armoury of spines and his quick wild wits, history does not relate, for we must go no further, having reached the happy end.

In the mid–path of my life, I woke to find myself in a dark wood,' writes Dante, in The Divine Comedy, beginning a quest that will lead to transformation and redemption. A journey through the dark of the woods is a motif common to fairy tales: young heroes set off through the perilous forest in order to reach their destiny, or they find themselves abandoned there, cast off and left for dead. The road is long and treacherous, prowled by wolves, ghosts, and wizards — but helpers also appear along the way, good fairies and animal guides, often cloaked in unlikely disguises. The hero's task is to tell friend from foe, and to keep walking steadily onward.

I once heard a panel discussion among magazine editors, who voiced their common greatest problem: to find people who can write. A generation has grown up lacking skill in composition and any sense of literary style. Though I doubt that any study of the matter has been made, my own experiences have borne out a theory that people who grow up hearing and reading folk and fairy tales throughout childhood develop not only lively imaginations, but originality in the use of words.

I reached out my hands to them, suddenly: I put out my hand to Sergey on one side, and to Stepon on the other, and they put out their hands to me, and to each other, and we held tight, tight; we made a circle together, my brothers and me, around the food that we had been given, and there was no wolf in the room.

I shook my head. “I thought you had a ‘No princesses’ rule.” “Rules are made to be broken,” said Grimm. Ari sat back in the chair, her eyes closed. “Of course, young lady, there’s the matter of how we sign our contracts.” “Not gonna happen.” Ari threw a pen at the mirror for emphasis.

Is life a fantasy or fairy tales?

It could be said that the lectures changed the way many people thought about myth, fairy story, and poetry, and even about the relationship of imagination to thought and to language. One of the brilliant but cryptic insights he expressed was: ‘To ask what is the origins of stories … is to ask what is the origin of language and of the mind.

I squared my shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that I was standing in the apartment of the sea witch, wearing a fairy-tale prom gown, waiting for the attack of the mermaids.

It can appear that Ellarie has it hard to be seen and to be heard. Sometimes this is her way and maybe not the best, but it is a way she often uses, I have to confess. Her invisible poke or pinch is to help those believe, in more than just a ghostly story or what the eyes can perceive. The brighter your light shines will give a clue, to the goodness you attract that follows you.” Trinity, The Little People Journey into the Mystic Sea

It doesn't matter if you're born in a duck yard, so long as you are hatched from a swan's egg!

It dawned on her as she grew older, that fairy tales instilled false hopes in people, and that no white knights existed in this world. The mothers should be well aware of that aspect of reality, so why they fed their daughters with the same crap for centuries baffled her.

It has generally been assumed that fairy tales were first created for children and are largely the domain of children. But nothing could be further from the truth. From the very beginning, thousands of years ago, when tales were told to create communal bonds in face of the inexplicable forces of nature, to the present, when fairy tales are written and told to provide hope in a world seemingly on the brink of catastrophe, mature men and women have been the creators and cultivators of the fairy tale tradition. When introduced to fairy tales, children welcome them mainly because they nurture their great desire for change and independence. On the whole, the literary fairy tale has become an established genre within a process of Western civilization that cuts across all ages. Even though numerous critics and shamans have mystified and misinterpreted the fairy tale because of their spiritual quest for universal archetypes or their need to save the world through therapy, both the oral and the literary forms of the fairy tale are grounded in history: they emanate from specific struggles to humanize bestial and barbaric forces, which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways, threatening to destroy free will and human compassion. The fairy tale sets out to conquer this concrete terror through metaphors.

The middle son gets a magic donkey. When you shout the word: "Bricklebrit!", it spews gold pieces out of... And I quote: ... its front and back. Yes, folks. Thing I Love #4: the Bricklebrit Donkey. You shout a word, and gold comes flying out its butt. Fairy tales don't get much better than that.

It is so delightful to teach those one loves!

It is one of the prime errors of historical and rational analysis to suppose that the “truth” and “original form” of a legend can be separated from its miraculous elements. It is in the marvels themselves that the truth inheres.

It is our responsibility to keep telling these tales--to tell them in a way that they teach and entertain and give meaning to our lives,' he [Jim] said later. 'This is not merely an obligation, it's something we must do because we love doing it.

It is time to put aside dreaming. Fairy tales are sweet on winter nights, nothing more.

It's like a fairy tale, and we're the shadows who are turning back into boys.

It is winter now, and the roses are blooming again, their petals bright against the snow. My father died last April; my sisters no longer write, except at the turning of the year, content with their fine houses and their grandchildren. Beast and I putter in the gardens and walk slowly on the forest paths. [from the poem, Beauty and the Beast: An Anniversary]

It's an invention, a fairy tale devoid of any sense, like all the legends in which good spirits and fortune tellers fulfill wishes. Stories like that are made up by poor simpletons, who can't even dream of fulfilling their wishes and desires themselves. I'm pleased you're not one of them, Geralt of Rivia. It makes you closer in spirit to me. If I want something, I don't dream of it—I act. And I always get what I want.

It's kind of strange...All these so-called myths and fables. Everyone seems to have the same ones. They cross cultures and continents. Everyone has their own versions of unicorns, witches, even the Fates. Now we know why. Because they're real.

I turned into Little Red Riding Hood. I made a cake, packed it up and went through the forest until I met the wolves. That's something the story got wrong, wolves don't travel solo, they hunt in packs.

It’s true; I have never been abandoned by my best friend. Even so, I think no one is really exempt from being hurt. I was hurt, too...and you may not know how I felt like...how it felt like...to be abandoned by your own mother.

It's wrong and unhealthy to deny a child the world of make-believe.

It was a glistening citadel of limestone, hard and smooth with creamy whites and speckled grays. This was, no doubt, the place mighty kings called home, and with awe, it stole Fawn’s breath away.

It was the Kojagar full moon, and I was slowly pacing the riverside conversing with myself. It could hardly be called a conversation, as I was doing all the talking and my imaginary companion all the listening. The poor fellow had no chance of speaking up for himself, for was not mine the power to compel him helplessly to answer like a fool? But what a night it was! How often have I tried to write of such, but never got it done! There was not a line of ripple on the river; and from away over there, where the farthest shore of the distant main stream is seen beyond the other edge of the midway belt of sand, right up to this shore, glimmers a broad band of moonlight. Not a human being, not a boat in sight; not a tree, nor blade of grass on the fresh-formed island sand-bank. It seemed as though a desolate moon was rising upon a devastated earth; a random river wandering through a lifeless solitude; a long-drawn fairy-tale coming to a close over a deserted world,—all the kings and the princesses, their ministers and friends and their golden castles vanished, leaving the Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers and the Unending Moor, over which the adventurous princes fared forth, wanly gleaming in the pale moonlight. I was pacing up and down like the last pulse-beats of this dying world. Every one else seemed to be on the opposite shore—the shore of life—where the British Government and the Nineteenth Century hold sway, and tea and cigarettes.

It was only as part of the civilizing process that storytelling developed within the aristocratic and bourgeois homes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through governesses and nannies, and later in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries through mothers, who told bedtime stories.

It was our passion for words and our ardent desire to write that drew me and Michael together, and the same that drove us apart. Michael wanted to be a great playwright, like the former master Molière. He had high ambitions and scorned what I wrote as frivolous and feminine. ‘All these disguises and duels and abductions,’ he said contemptuously, one day a year or so after our affair began, slapping down the pile of paper covered with my sprawling handwriting. ‘All these desperate love affairs. And you wish me to take you seriously.’ ‘I like disguises and duels.’ I sat bolt upright on the edge of my bed. ‘Better than those dreary boring plays you write. At least something happens in my stories.’ ‘At least my plays are about something.’ ‘My stories are about something too. Just because they aren’t boring doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy.’ ‘What are they about? Love’ He clasped his hands together near his ear and fluttered his eyelashes.’ ‘Yes, love. What’s wrong with writing about love? Everyone longs for love.’ ‘Aren’t there enough love stories in the world without adding to them? ‘Isn’t there enough misery and tragedy?’ Michael snorted with contempt. ‘What’s wrong with wanting to be happy? ‘It’s sugary and sentimental.’ ‘Sugary? I’m not sugary.’ I was so angry that I hurled my shoes at his head.

I've been very influenced by folklore, fairy tales, and folk ballads, so I love all the classic works based on these things -- like George Macdonald's 19th century fairy stories, the fairy poetry of W.B. Yeats, and Sylvia Townsend Warner's splendid book The Kingdoms of Elfin. (I think that particular book of hers wasn't published until the 1970s, not long before her death, but she was an English writer popular in the middle decades of the 20th century.) I'm also a big Pre-Raphaelite fan, so I love William Morris' early fantasy novels. Oh, and "Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirrlees (Neil Gaiman is a big fan of that one too), and I could go on and on but I won't!

I've always liked fairytales. It was probably the illustrations that first drew me in – beautiful ones from an Italian publisher, if I recall. But growing up in the country, surrounded by trees, fairly isolated and with rather primitive technology at the house, the stories seemed to seep into reality more than they might have otherwise. Fairytales are also a wonderful vocabulary (almost an alphabet) of storytelling among people who know them. You can use fairytale elements to build entirely new stories; images that work as independent pictures and narratives for viewers and readers who are new to them. But once that audience becomes aware of the depth of history and the ongoing conversation that is happening through all those layers of tellings and retellings and reimaginings, there is a splendid depth and resonance you can access.

I want to tell you all of myself, show you the nicks and dents and scars of my life, and have you love me even though I be grievously flawed.

I've spent my life wondering when I would earn the right to be a man again. Despite the undeserved good fortune of finding my true love, I always held a kernel of bitterness in my heart that things were not different... I will never be the man that I was. That man is dead—slain—for better or for worse, by my life as the Beast. In your words, the world does not need who I was.

I wanted that uncaring, 'here's your blood and guts and your fucked-up happy ending' fairy-tale voice... And it was perfect. There are no lessons in it. There's just this harsh, horrible world touched with beautiful magic, where shitty things happen. And they don't happen for a reason, or in threes, or in a way that looks like justice. They're set in a place that has no rules and doesn't want any. And the author's voice... is perfectly pitiless. She's like a war reporter who doesn't give a fuck.

I’ve never believed in fairy tales. One day, the fairies will tell this story. There will be a valiant prince, a part no doubt played in history by the brave Vartan who journeys to rescue his bride from a dragon. There will be fairies. There will be horse-birds and there will be an enchanted blade. But, I will no doubt be stricken from the tale, a cursed blemish on a shining story. Happy endings don’t always happen in the real world.

I will tell you, too, that every fairy tale has a moral. The moral of my story may be that love is a constraint, as strong as any belt. And this is certainly true, which makes it a good moral. Or it may be that we are all constrained in some way, either in our bodies, or in our hearts or minds, an Empress as well as the woman who does her laundry. ... Perhaps it is that a shoemaker's daughter can bear restraint less easily than an aristocrat, that what he can bear for three years she can endure only for three days. ... Or perhaps my moral is that our desire for freedom is stronger than love or pity. That is a wicked moral, or so the Church has taught us. But I do not know which moral is the correct one. And that is also the way of a fairy tale.

I wasn’t afraid of your average dark alley. I had standard Agency-issue spells in my coat and a nine millimeter in my purse for dealing with the less dangerous pests, but even I knew you have to be careful with an upset woman.

I will lay my hand upon the flow of time, if need be, that you shall have however much of it you seek.

I will use my special sight! I will quiet myself right here and now and I will get the answer on what to do to and create my own way out of here!” Arthur, See the Little People…An Enchanting Adventure

Look here...this shell is unique. I think I could gather all the seashells in the world and I would still fail to find another one like this. As beautiful as this. In the same way, I think that’s how you are.

Little Red Riding Hood was stalked; Cinderella was abused; the Beauty had to live with a hideous Beast; Snow White was poisoned; Hansel and Gretel were meat for a cannibal… and then we wonder why our kids grow up with problems.

Luna had told us not to drop the rose, not to leave the path. But we never dropped the rose - it was on me the whole time - and we didn't leave the path, not really. We just took a shortcut through the shadows and the brush, something idiots have been doing in fairy tales since the beginning of time.

LOVE is the answer to everything! Seriously! Everything! The Little People Journey into the Mystic Sea

Lyra had been born in the cold, and in the stark of winter, she thrived.

Magic is a naughty beast.

Madame d'Aulnoy is the true mother of the modern fairy tale. She invented the modern Court of Fairyland, with its manners, its fairies, its queens, its amorous, its cruel, its good, its evil, its odious, its friendly fées.

Marilynn...passed out black cases to everyone. I opened mine to find an iPad inside. Several candidates whistled. Despite my agitated state, it impressed me too. Maybe wizard school wasn’t going to be as lame as I had thought. “All of your schedules and assignments will be done on these,” Marilynn explained. “The whole school is on these. We’ve had them for awhile now.

Man, Grandma, what big hair you have." "The better to style with, my dear.