Fair Folk Quotes

After every battle, he ritually dips his hood into the blood of his enemies. I've seen the hood, kept under glass in the armory. The fabric is stiff and stained a brown so deep it's almost black, except for a few smears of green.
Sometimes I go down and stare at it, trying to see my parents in the tide lines of dried blood. I want to feel something, something besides a vague queasiness. I want to feel more, but every time I look at it, I feel less. ~ Holly Black

This is how a faerie loves: with her whole body and soul.
This is how a faerie loves: with destruction.
This is how a faerie loves: with a gift. ~ Cassandra Clare

When he faced her again, he had never looked to her so much like one of the Fair Folk. His eyes were full of feral amusement, a carelessness that spoke of a world where there was no human Law. He seemed to bring the wildness of Faerie into the room with him: a cold, sweet magic that was nevertheless a bitter at the roots.
The storm calls you as it calls me, does it not?
He held out a hand to her, half-beckoning, half-offering.
"Why lie?" he said. ~ Cassandra Clare

When the Fair Folk gave you an instruction, you followed it, whether it suited you or not. That was just the way it was. ~ Juliet Marillier

You think I don't deserve him," I say to Cardan.
He smiles slowly, like the moon slipping beneath the waves of the lake. "Oh no, I think you're perfect for each other. ~ Holly Black

The Lord and Lady of the Fair Folk sat at our own table, dressed in robes of red and black, their faces painted in patterns with ash and oils. Their eyes were intense, almost searing, and I found myself still unable to hold their gaze for
more than a moment. I felt naked within their gaze, but even more so, unwhole. As if there were parts of me missing and only they knew where to find them ~ Virginia Chandler

My ears hurt as if being tugged upon by pliers - yet I welcome the pain, as it heralds the completion of my journey to reunite with my Welsh ancestors. I hear them clearly now:
We be *Tylwyth Teg*, the Fair Folk. We be your kinsfolk. *Mae ein gwaed yn eich gwaed*. Our blood is your blood. We be the Dea-kinsmen. Magick is our way. ~ Horton Deakins

For no matter whether the fairies are seen metaphorically or as real beings inhabiting their own real world, a study of them shows us that those who came before us (and many of that mindset still survive) realized that we are
no matter what we may think to the contrary
very little creatures, here for a short time only ('passing through,' as the old people say) and that we have no right to destroy what the next generation will most assuredly need to also see itself through.
If only we could learn that lesson, maybe someday we might be worthy of the wisdom of those who knew that to respect the Good People is basically to respect yourself. ~ Eddie Lenihan

He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him - the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal ~ Arthur Machen

They've called us a lot of things-- the good neighbors, the fair folk. The gray ones, the old ones, the other ones. Spirits and haunts and demons. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

We all accepted that this land was a gate to that other world, the realm of spirits and dreams and the Fair Folk, without any question. The place we grew up in was so full of magic that it was almost a part of everyday life - not to say you'd meet one of them every time you went out to pick berries, or draw water from your well, but everyone we knew had a friend of a friend who'd strayed too far into the forest, and disappeared; or ventured inside a ring of mushrooms, and gone away for a while, and come back subtly changed. Strange things could happen in those places. Gone for maybe fifty years you could be, and come back still a young girl; or away for no more than an instant by moral reckoning, and return wrinkled and bent with age. These tales fascinated us, but failed to make us careful. If it was going to happen to you, it would happen, whether you liked it or not. ~ Juliet Marillier

The town was its green suburban lawns, sure, but it was also its secrets. The kind of place where people double-checked the locks at night or pulled their kids closer in the grocery store. They hung horseshoes over their front doors and put up bells instead of wind chimes. They wore crosses made from stainless steel instead of gold because gold couldn't protect them from people like me. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

He was astonishingly vain even by fair folk standards, which was like saying a pond is unusually wet, or a bear surprisingly hairy. ~ Margaret Rogerson

The Queen touched her lips thoughtfully with a single long white finger. 'The Fair Folk, unlike humans, do not concern themselves overmuch with liking. Love, perhaps, and hate. Both are useful emotions. But liking ... She shrugged elegantly. ~ Cassandra Clare

The riders, too, were like nothing she had ever seen before: ethereal men and women with pale visages, their cheekbones so sharply sculpted that she could see their skulls through translucent skin. They surrounded her and looked at her with steely blue eyes, each gaze an arrow staking her to that spot, and she could not close her eyes though the sight of them made her eyes burn as if she were looking at the sun. ~ Malinda Lo

If there is one thing I have learned in my life, and I grant I have not learned much, it is this: Neither Fair Folk nor mortals know what love is or is not. No one does. ~ Cassandra Clare

Some things you just have to take on faith and believe in at the risk of getting hurt. It's one of the things that the Fair Folk will never understand, and it's something that sets us apart from them. The fact that each and every time we believe in each other we take a risk. Because we know that it might NOT be the truth. But we also know that it MIGHT be. ~ Lesley Livingston

San Francisco hosted the first medical marijuana job fair. The keynote speech was titled, 'Jobs and How to Avoid Getting One.' ~ Jay Leno

Ruling Akaran is a strange task. In many ways, it is like balancing an illusion. You must separate the illusion of what you see and the reality of its consequences," he said. "Tell me, my queen, are you ready to play with fate? ~ Roshani Chokshi

There are vivid memories from my childhood - what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose, if I wanted to be fair, I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers. ~ Cesar Chavez

The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation. For if we don't, the current pattern of great concentration of wealth and power will worsen, and we may face the steady immiseration of most of the American population ... ~ Charles Ferguson

The uncandid censurer always picks out the worst man of a class, and then confidently produces him as being a fair specimen of it. ~ Hannah More

It's probably my job to tell you life isn't fair, but I figure you already know that. So instead, I'll tell you that hope is precious, and you're right not to give up. ~ C.J. Redwine

Fair means everyone gets what they need. And the only way to get what you need is to make that happen yourself. ~ Rick Riordan

Technically a memoir, 'The Woman Warrior' becomes almost magical through its inclusion of folk tales, dreams, and revisions. ~ Karen Joy Fowler

The problem with a lot of people who read only literary fiction is that they assume fantasy is just books about orcs and goblins and dragons and wizards and bullshit. And to be fair, a lot of fantasy is about that stuff.

The problem with people in fantasy is they believe that literary fiction is just stories about a guy drinking tea and staring out the window at the rain while he thinks about his mother. And the truth is a lot of literary fiction is just that. Like, kind of pointless, angsty, emo, masturbatory bullshit.

However, we should not be judged by our lowest common denominators. And also you should not fall prey to the fallacious thinking that literary fiction is literary and all other genres are genre. Literary fiction is a genre, and I will fight to the death anyone who denies this very self-evident truth.

So, is there a lot of fantasy that is raw shit out there? Absolutely, absolutely, it's popcorn reading at best. But you can't deny that a lot of lit fic is also shit. 85% of everything in the world is shit. We judge by the best. And there is some truly excellent fantasy out there. For example, Midsummer Night's Dream; Hamlet with the ghost; Macbeth, ghosts and witches; I'm also fond of the Odyessey; Most of the Pentateuch in the Old Testament, Gargantua and Pantagruel.

Honestly, fantasy existed before lit fic, and if you deny those roots you're pruning yourself so closely that you can't help but wither and die. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

And that's when she put her book down. And looked at me. And said it: Life isn't fair, Bill. we tell our children that it is, but it's a terrible thing to do. It's not only a lie, it's a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it never has been, and it's never going to be. ~ William Goldman

The freedom we enjoy is a richly textured gift handcrafted by ordinary folk ~ Nelson Mandela

This book is a fairy tale in which I am the prince and the princess. I am the king and the queen. I am my own wicked witch and fairy godmother. This book is a fairy tale in which I'm cursed and blessed by others. But, finally, I am the fair y finding my own magic. ~ Dean Atta

There are those who have made their fortunes on other people's misfortune. The Bible never promised that life would be fair. ~ Billy Graham

I have no regrets. I wanted to raise the kids and be a present father. When I developed a movie, I was gone for a year. That didn't really work for me. That isn't fair to make these life-forms and then disappear. ~ Dana Carvey

People tell you that what happens to you is a direct result of the choices you make, but that's not fair. Half the time, you don't even realize that the choice you're about to make is significant. ~ Kristin Cashore

Folk parapsychology, an art and science designed to enable people to make effective use of their psychic talents ~ Isaac Bonewits

For me photography had an immediacy ... I was trying to resolve certain issues. What was fair or unfair about how people lived, and how they had to live? I thought the most penetrating and most immediate way to get to some of those questions was through photography. ~ Jerome Liebling

Rules for Living by Olivia Joules
1. Never panic. Stop, breathe, think.
2. No one is thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves, just like you.
3. Never change haircut or color before an important event.
4. Nothing is either as bad or good as it seems.
5. Do as you would be done by, e.g. thou shalt not kill.
6. It is better to buy one expensive thing that you really like than several cheap ones that you only quite like.
7. Hardly anything matters: if you get upset, ask yourself, "Does it really matter?"
8. The key to success lies in how you pick yourself up from failure.
9. Be honest and kind.
10. Only buy clothes that make you feel like doing a small dance.
11. Trust your instincts, not your overactive imagination.
12. When overwhelmed by disaster, check if it's really a disaster by doing the following: (a) think, "Oh, fuck it," (b) look on the bright side, and if that doesn't work, look on the funny side. If neither of the above works then maybe it is a disaster so turn to items 1 and 4.
13. Don't expect the world to be safe or life to be fair. ~ Helen Fielding

Marylanders have led the nation in adopting a balanced approach to revenues and investments because we know that in order to maintain and build the #1 public schools in the nation, we had to ask everyone to pay their fair share. We need Congress to do the same. ~ Martin O'Malley

It's not about how bad or unfair the world is!
It's all about how you take care of your goodness. So don't be the same, try to be fair with this unfair WORLD. ~ Sid

Order to find them at the bottom of the box, Rodolphe disturbed all the others, and mechanically began rummaging amidst this mass of papers and things, finding pell-mell bouquets, garters, a black mask, pins, and hair - hair! dark and fair, some even, catching in the hinges of the box, broke when it was opened. Thus dallying with his souvenirs, he examined the writing and the style of the letters, as varied as their orthography. They were tender or jovial, facetious, melancholy; there were some that asked for love, others that asked for money. A word recalled faces to him, certain gestures, the sound of a voice; sometimes, however, he remembered nothing at all. ~ Gustave Flaubert

I try to make my music have the quiet spaces of folk, the intimacy, and the energy of rock. ~ Jane Siberry

One of the goals of scientific theorising is to develop concepts which are adequate to the phenomena under study. In my view, things should work the same way in epistemology. We want to know what knowledge actually amounts to, not what our folk concept of knowledge is, since, just as with our pretheoretical concept of acidity, it might contain all sorts of misunderstandings and leave out all manner of important things. ~ Hilary Kornblith

Government or politics in America today is big business. Everybody makes money involving themselves in one way or the other, whether it's pollsters, whether they are policy wonks, whether they are pundits, whether they are those who believe that they must call it as they see it and then to be fair about it. ~ Douglas Wilder

Dewdrops, Nature's tears, which she Sheds in her own breast for the fair which die. The sun insists on gladness; but at night, When he is gone, poor Nature loves to weep. ~ Philip James Bailey

Remember... start each day with a task completed. Find someone to help you through life. Respect everyone. Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often. But if you take some risks, step up when times are toughest, face down the bullies, life up the downtrodden, and never, ever give up - if you do these things, then you can change your life for the better... and maybe the world! ~ William H. McRaven

There are eight worlds, the first one said. They lie side by side, in degrees of perfection. This world is the most perfect one. Below these lines, written in a different ink, was: There is one single world, divided into three levels which are partitioned off from each other by greased membranes. Then in red ink: There are two worlds and they overlap. The first is the land of Day, which belongs to the humans. The second is the land of Twilight, which belongs to the free folk, and of which the woods is a little backwater part. Both lands must obey Time, but the Twilight is ruled by the Heart, whereas the Day is ruled by Thought. At the bottom of the page, large block letters proclaimed: ALL OF THIS IS TRUE. ~ Karin Tidbeck

Whistleblowers is another aspect that needs to be addressed. We have to restore the protections of whistleblowers and also the encouragement and rewards. It shouldn't just be that they don't get crucified; it should be that they are again folk heroes, or celebrated for bringing critical matters to public attention, as opposed to traitors. ~ Ted Gup

I take it your revolt is not engineered for the benefit of your fellow-nobles, or as an attempt to reestablish your mother's blood claim through the Calahanras family. Wherefore is it, then?"
I looked up in surprise. "There ought to be no mystery obscuring our reasons. Did you not trouble to read the letter we sent to Galdran Merindar before he sent Debegri against us? It was addressed to the entire Court, and our reasons were stated as plainly as we could write them--and all our names signed to it."
"Assume that the letter was somehow suppressed," he said dryly. "Can you summarize its message?"
"Easy," I said promptly. "We went to war on behalf of the Hill Folk, whose Covenant Galdran wants to break. But not just for them. We also want to better the lives of the people of Remalna: the ordinary folk who've been taxed into poverty, or driven from their farms, or sent into hastily constructed mines, all for Galdran's personal glory. And I guess for the rest of yours as well, for whose money are you spending on those fabulous Court clothes you never wear twice? Your father still holds the Renselaeus principality--or has he ceded it to Galdran at last? Isn't it, too, taxed and farmed to the bone so that you can outshine all the rest of those fools at Court?"
All the humor had gone out of his face, leaving it impossible to read. He said, "Since the kind of rumor about Court life that you seem to regard as truth also depicts us as inveterate liars, I will not wa ~ Sherwood Smith

I don't suppose there's a Georgina Kincaid Instruction Manual around somewhere to help me avoid these embarrassing blunders in the future."
"We sell them downstairs."
"Oh yeah? Is there a page on how to woo the fair Georgina?"
"Page? Hell, there's a whole chapter."
"Required reading, I'd imagine."
"Definitely. ~ Richelle Mead

But the reality is that we are a folk band. ~ Amy Ray

I would never do 'Dancing With The Stars,' because it's just not fair. I am too good of a dancer. It would be like LeBron James playing little league basketball. ~ Terry Crews

The minute you stop expecting life to be simple, fair and easy ... it becomes simple, fair and easy. ~ John Spence

Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man's origin, capacity and responsibility. ~ Clarence Darrow

I think that all of us, as Americans, are due due process and have a right to a fair trial, and have a right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. I think that is the American way and it's the foundation upon which this country was built. ~ Wesley Snipes

You go through one of the instructors' landscapes. My brother told me."
"Ooh,which instructor?" says Christina, suddenly perking up.
"You know, it really isn't fair that you all get insider information and we don't," Will says, glaring at Uriah.
"Like you wouldn't use an advantage if you had one," retorts Uriah.
Christina ignores them. "I hope it's Four's landscape."
"Why?" I ask. The question comes out too incredulous. I bite my lip and wish I could take it back.
"Looks like someone had a mood swing." She rolls her eyes. "Like you don't want to know what his fears are. He acts so tough that he's probably afraid of marshmellows and really bright sunrises or something. Overcompensating."
I shake my head. "It won't be him."
"How would you know?"
"It's just a prediction."
I remember Tobias's father in his fear landscape. He wouldn't let everyone see that.I glance at him. For a second, his eyes shift to mine. His stare is unfeeling.Then he looks away. ~ Veronica Roth

All these boys were lethal. It really wasn't fair. ~ Stacey Marie Brown

When people talk about cash being king, it's not king if it just sits there and never does anything. There are times when cash buys more than other times, and this is one of the other times when it buys a fair amount more, so we use it. ~ Howard Warren Buffett

In the old tales, when people undertake quests, they find themselves fighting dragons or serpents or giant dogs. Or maybe a dark warrior of some kind, folk who are enemies from the start. But it's far more frightening when someone seems friendly and good, and turns out to be different altogether. The odd and uncanny are not terrifying in themselves. The most disturbing thing is the ordinary turned strange. Things familiar and safe becoming not right. ~ Juliet Marillier

Of one hundred movies there's one that is fair, one that's good and ninety eight that are very bad. most movies start badly and steadily get worse ~ Charles Bukowski

Government isn't always just, and it isn't always fair. But it should be. ~ Joelle Charbonneau

Perhaps the greatest evil I see in this existence is when supposedly holy men prey upon the basic fears of death of the common folk to take from them. "Give to the church!" they cry. "Only then will you find salvation! Even more subtle are the many religions that do not directly ask for a person's coin, but insist that anyone of goodly and godly heart who is destined for their particular description of heaven, would willingly give that coin over. ~ R.A. Salvatore

And payment exacted for the crimes and weaknesses of a lifetime. Her hands shook, and tears prickled at the back of her eyes, but she couldn't even cry. Something horrible was going to happen to her, and she knew she deserved it, but she couldn't help shrieking inside that it wasn't fair, that she hadn't known what would happen back when she could still change things, back while it would have done any good. And now, nothing she could do could ever make up for what she'd done. She didn't think she could do good if she tried. ~ Mercedes Lackey

Google likely never cared if Google+ 'won' as a competitor to Facebook (though if it did, that would have been a nice bonus). All that mattered, in the end, was whether Plus became the connective tissue between all of Google's formerly scattered services. And in a few short years, it's fair to say it has. ~ John Battelle

And even if you hate her, can't stand her, even if she's ruining your life, there's something about her, some romance, some power. She's absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get to her. And when she dies, the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, fair. ~ Mona Simpson

It wasn't fair. Mollie had spent her entire life trying to do the right thing - going out of her way to do what she was supposed to, even when she wanted to do the exact opposite. But tonight her heart had betrayed her. Tonight her heart had done the wrong thing. No, the absolute worst thing.

Tonight, at her sister's wedding, Mollie Carrington had gone and fallen head over heels in love.

With the groom. ~ Lauren Layne

Goliath symbolizes the vanity and the illusions of this world. They disappear in a puff ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Is the fact that other people are not doing their fair share a sufficient reason for allowing a child to die when you could easily rescue that child? I think the answer is clear: No. The others have, by refusing to help with the rescue, made themselves irrelevant. They might as well be so many rocks. According to the fair-share view, in fact, it would be better for the children if they were rocks, because then you would be obliged to wade back into the pond to save another child. ~ Peter Singer

It was strange to us that none of these three victims made any attempt to resist the attack. Indeed, not one inhabitant in any of these worlds considered for a moment the possibility of resistance. In every case the attitude to disaster seemed to express itself in such terms as these:
To retaliate would be to wound our communal spirit beyond cure. We choose rather to die. The theme of spirit that we have created must inevitably be broken short, whether by the ruthlessness of the invader or by our own resort to arms. It is better to be destroyed than to triumph in slaying the spirit. Such as it is, the spirit that we have achieved is fair; and it is indestructibly woven into the tissue of the cosmos. We die praising the universe in which at least such an achievement as ours can be. We die knowing that the promise of further glory outlives us in other galaxies. We die praising the Star Maker, the Star Destroyer. ~ Olaf Stapledon