Fairy Tales Quotes

[Fairy tales] make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The narrative of so many fairy tales are timeless in so many different cultures, and they have been since the dawn of man. They represent escapism, but they all feature themes that have such poignancy in a modern world. ~ Lily Cole

I loved fairy tales as a kid, so that's where my mind gravitates. ~ Gail Carson Levine

Fairy Tales are born from our need for love and without romance the world is bitter. With love in your heart the world is always sweet. ~ Nanette Kinslow

Fairy tales are just true stories that humans have chosen not to believe in any more. Besides, this is Myths and Legends where dreams and nightmares come to life. ~ Stacie Simpson

The idea of love horrified me, and I knew I couldn't have it, so I didn't want it. ~ H.A. Lamb

Mother didn't understand that children aren't frightened by stories; that their lives are full of far more frightening things than those contained in fairy tales. ~ Kate Morton

Fairy tales only happen in movies.
-George Melies
from The Invention of Hugo Cabret ~ Brian Selznick

If our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairy tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy tale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the fairy tale. The whole point depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Sometimes I look at this world and it moves me to tears. The joy and terror and the mad bloody drama of it all. I wonder why they never seem to really see it. Maybe one lifetime just isn't enough. Or maybe it's too much. I can't say. But the truth, to be perfectly plain, is that people are always looking for magic in all the wrong places. ~ Brian Holguin

This story was written many moons ago under an apple tree in an orchard in Kent, which is one of England's prettiest counties . . . I had read at least twenty of the [fairy tales] when I noticed something that had never struck me before--I suppose because I had always taken it for granted. All the princesses, apart from such rare exceptions as Snow White, were blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful, with lovely figures and complexions and extravagantly long hair. This struck me as most unfair, and suddenly I began to wonder just how many handsome young princes would have asked a king for the hand of his daughter if that daughter had happened to be gawky, snub-nosed, and freckled, with shortish mouse-colored hair? None, I suspected. They would all have been of chasing after some lissome Royal Highness with large blue eyes and yards of golden hair and probably nothing whatever between her ears! It was in that moment that a story about a princess who turned out to be ordinary jumped into my mind, and the very next morning I took my pencil box and a large rough-notebook down to the orchard and, having settled myself under an apple tree in full bloom, began to write . . . the day was warm and windless and without a cloud in the sky. A perfect day and a perfect place to write a fairy story. ~ M.M. Kaye

When I was a little girl, I believed in fairy tales and one of the dreams I had was someday dancing alongside my prince. Asher's that guy for me. He's my dream and my wish come true. He's my prince. ~ Lisa De Jong

The difference between a fairy tale and a sea tale? A fairy tale starts with "Once upon a time". A sea tale starts with " This ain't no $hit"! ~ Edith Widder

But after being on the run I've learned a life spent creating enemies isn't worth leading. Having allies is the best advantage in the world. ~ Chris Colfer

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. ~ Ashwin Sanghi

She talks like you. It's not every day you hear a four-year-old say Prince Charming is a douchebag who's only holding Cinderella back."
"That's my girl. ~ Emma Chase

This was like being in one of those National Geographic magazines. We were among the natives now. ~ Brandi Salazar

Because of pressure from society, many a man has married a woman with whom he isn't compatible; she likes fairy tales, whereas he likes hairy males. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

This is what happens, when things are not quite a fairy tale.
You go into the woods to find your story. If you are brave, if you are fortunate, you walk out of them to find your life. ~ Kat Howard

For I need not remind such an audience as this that the neat sorting out of books into age-groups, so dear to publishers, has only a very sketchy relation with the habits of any real readers. Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. No reader worth his salt trots along in obedience to a time-table. ~ C.S. Lewis

He held out the pendant in the palm of his hand.
"Happy birthday, Copper," he whispered. ~ Sharon Lynn Fisher

If the wishes came true, they came true in terrible ways. Wishes were dangerous things. That was the idea you got from fairy tales. ~ Kate DiCamillo

I've always been a huge fantasy fan. I was always interested in fairy tales and anything with magic or dragons ... I was always drawn to those types of stories. ~ Sarah J. Maas

He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as unfair to not have the same fanciful opportunity himself. And he is not in the position to do any rescuing of his own. ~ Erin Morgenstern

But here's a great thing about stories: they can be retold. ~ Christine Heppermann

I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and, in that respect, I liked Bible stories, because to me they were very gothic. ~ Amy Tan

And fairy tales are make-believe. They are the stories we tell to small children to make them believe the world is a far better place than it really is. ~ J.L. Vallance

She learned
that dead moms
were not just
a thing that
happened to
characters
in her favorite
fairy tales.
it happened to
girls like her, too.
but the
difference was
there was no
omniscient narrator
to teach her how
to navigate it.
- the cracked compass. ~ Amanda Lovelace

Fairy tales are best read as entertainment," Harry said. "Not as a guide to life. ~ Lisa Kleypas

We no longer believe in fairy tales. But we will learn to believe in monsters ~ Francesca Lia Block

There is a place for everyone in the world. When you find yours, your heart will call it home. - Kailin Gow, Fearless Fairy Tales Series ~ Kailin Gow

There was a place in childhood that I remember well, And there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairy tales did tell. ~ Samuel Lover

Like a grindhouse version of Grimm's Fairy Tales, Wallwork's fiction is smart, innovative, and a hell of a lot of fun. ~ Carlton Mellick III

Why should a horror film be just a horror film? To me, The Company of Wolves is a fairy tale; it's got all those elements plus a lot more. And we know that fairy tales aren't innocent any more. ~ Neil Jordan

Fairytales by nature only talk about the victors. The survivors. Nobody speaks about what happens to those who failed, except in the abstract: as cautionary tales to guide others onto the path to success. How many brave knights fell to the dragon before he was slayed by the noble prince? How many children burned to a crisp and eaten before the wicked witch received her due? These stories are lost, but the lesson behind them is not: it is not enough to be merely pure and good. ~ Nenia Campbell

Nicholas wanted to believe in fairy tales. She'd read her share, hoping for miracles, but in the end, there was no hundred acre wood to play in with her little stuffed animals. There was pain and crushing disillusionment and betrayal. ~ Christine Feehan

ABOUT SENTIMENTALITY IN LITERATURE:
"Sentimental fiction is a kind of pablum: Excessive amounts can spoil the appetite for reality, or at least for more fibrous forms of art. One reason, surely, why readers throw down books when they don't contain sufficiently "likable" characters is that their tolerance for any sort of moral challenge - for being asked, say, to sympathize with homeless little boys who are godless and truculent and a bit smelling - has been eroded by too many fairy tales masquerading as adult literature."~ wrote Zoe Heller for Bookends in the Sunday's NY Times Book Review interview ~ Alice Simpson

But nobody writes fairy tales
about the ugly and poems
are not there for the broken
and I will never find myself
in the words of a hymn
nor will any whispered prayer
ever say my name
(which name, which me
am I looking for?)
because I am shouting
at a cross splintered into pieces
by my angry fists, and crying
at the stained glass falling
like killing rain around me. ~ Miriam Joy

And those women were sneaky. They understood that including fantastical elements in their tales- golden eggs, signing harps, talking frogs- worked to mask a deeper purpose....it made the stories look on the surface like 'a mere bubble of nonsense' within which it was possible to 'utter harsh truths, to say what you dare' about the state of women's lives. Because they were just stories, right? Harmless little fantasies? ~ Christine Heppermann

In fairy tales, love strikes like lightning. In real life, lightning burns. It can even kill you. ~ Neil Strauss

I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times. ~ Karen Blixen

Let us, at least, dig and seek till we have discovered our own opinions. The dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic, and, perhaps, far more beautiful than we think. In the course of these essays I fear that I have spoken from time to time of rationalists and rationalism, and that in a disparaging sense. Being full of that kindliness which should come at the end of everything, even of a book, I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists. There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them. Some, with a sumptuous literary turn, believe in the existence of the lady clothed with the sun. Some, with a more rustic, elvish instinct, like Mr. McCabe, believe merely in the impossible sun itself. Some hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of God; some the equally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the man next door. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Like a simple wildflower, standing strong through rain, wind and hail, love, finally, had its way, and it was content. ~ Ella Rose Carlos

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Are you overdone yet? ~ Charlotte Henley Babb

I just read anything I could find. Fairy tales and mysteries and history and poetry. It didn't matter what it was. I would read it over and over and over again. The books, they helped keep me from losing my mind all together. ~ Tahereh Mafi

We get divorce, we get conned, someone we love dies, or we can't find anybody to love us or somebody breaks our heart and we realize this fairy tale ain't fair. So we suffer. ~ Terry McMillan

She'd been let down enough times to know not to believe in fairy tales. ~ Michelle Madow

In a sense, every human construction, whether mental or material, is a component in a landscape of fear because it exists in constant chaos. Thus children's fairy tales as well as adult's legends, cosmological myths, and indeed philosophical systems are shelters built by the mind in which human beings can rest, at least temporarily, from the siege of inchoate experience and of doubt. ~ Yi-Fu Tuan

Fairy tales teach us not just about love, but to fight for the things that you want. They show us that no matter how bad things get there's always hope. That you should stand up and say no even if no one else will. To believe and to dream even if it seems impossible. ~ Kay Harding

Writers possess magic. It's in their words.
They compose phrases as powerful as incantations, creating illusions in the minds of readers. These spells make eyes envision things that aren't real; they make hearts feel things that aren't actual. A writer's work is to pen enchantments meant to entrance and hypnotize the mind, causing neglect of all other duties and responsibilities in order for the reader to remain a puppet controlled by the writer's wand. And if some foul friend does manage to break the spell, he is despised for it. His heroics are too late in coming. The words―the fairy tales―have seeped beyond the body and into the soul, taking possession. Our poor reader is infected, compromised, never to be cured. The notion of magic found in simple words such as, 'Once upon a time...' has always fascinated me. It is no wonder I am compelled to write. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

What I mean is, all the terrible things that happen in fairy tales seem real. Or not real, but genuine. Life is unfair, and the bad guys keep winning and good people die. But I like how that's not always the end of it ... Evil is real, but so is good. They always say fairy tales are simplistic, black and white, but I don't think so. I think they're complicated. That's what I love about them. ~ Polly Shulman

In fairy tales, the children are saved by caring adults. We need more caring adults in the lives of our children. ~ Donna Shalala

Fairy Tales do not generally come true. If you mary a frog, he stays a frog. ~ Ina Caro

Fairy tales to me are never happy, sweet stories. They're moral stories about overcoming the dark side and the bad. ~ Joe Wright

To be the object of desire is to be defined in the passive case.
To exist in the passive case is to die in the passive case – that is, to be killed.
This is the moral of the fairy tale about the perfect woman. ~ Angela Carter

Someone once told there's nothing wrong with fairy tales everyone ends up happily ever after in the end. ~ Peyton Sawyer

Only in fairy tales are unwanted babies orphaned upwards. ~ Ian McEwan

Even if there is a path to heaven, never mind, walk on a forest path instead! Tend not to fairy tales that look like real, but to realities that look like fairy tales! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

None of [the books are] worth reading. There are no fairy tales, no faerie tails, no sword-swinging princesses or lightning-throwing gods. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

No wonder princesses were so impotent in fairy tales, she thought. If all they could do was smile, stand straight, and speak to squirrels, then what choice did they have but to wait for a boy to rescue them? Princess ~ Soman Chainani

Jessabelle,
I'm sorry to just leave, but I need some time.
Time to get my head back on straight.
Time to remember who I really am.
Time with my Creator, the one who knew before the foundations of the earth what would happen over the last few days.

I wish more than anything, that I could process all of this with you, go through all of this together, because I'm coming to understand that, out of all the men in the world, God picked me for you. It's so much more than lineage. It's you. How you've come into your own. How you've blossomed and grown. I'm so privileged to see that secret side of you-the side no one else gets to see. The side where you secretly paint your second toenail a different color because everyone else does the fourth one, but you're not sure my mother would approve so you never wear open-toed shoes to show them off. You only eat M&Ms in odd numbers. You use your right hand to put hair behind your ear, but never your left.
You didn't know I knew those things, did you?
I've watched you over the last few months and learned more about you than I realized until I tried to put my thoughts on paper. You're sleeping just feet away from me as I write this. Your even breathing brings some peace to my troubled soul. The small smile on your face makes me wonder what your dreaming about and if, in your sleep, you've managed to find happiness instead of the turmoil life always seems to bring. I have to stop myself ~ Carol Moncado

One is not a "believer" in fairy tales. There is no theology, no body of dogma, no ritual, no institution, no expectation for a form of behavior. They are about the unexpectedness and mutability of the world. ~ George Szirtes

There is no adult terror equivalent to what an innocent child experiences when first confronted with the truth that evil is not merely a figment of fairy tales, that it walks the world in countless forms, and that what it seeks most aggressively is the destruction of the innocent. ~ Dean Koontz

If you want to tell grown-up fairy tales, you have to look for the dark side. ~ Juan Antonio Bayona

After all, in fairy tales, there was only one thing to do. In every story with a long sleep and a waking in it. An easy thing, a pretty thing. Standard currency. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Even when a prohibition in a fairy-story is guessed to be derived from some taboo once practised long ago, it has probably been preserved in the later stages of the tale's history because of the great mythical significance of prohibition. A sense of significance may indeed have lain behind some of the taboos themselves. Thou shalt not - or else thou shalt depart beggared into endless regret. The gentlest 'nursery-tales' know it. Even Peter Rabbit was forbidden a garden, lost his blue coat, and took sick. The Locked Door stands as an eternal Temptation. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Thing is," Grial said in a conspiratorial voice, "let me tell you a little secret, girlie. That road- those roads, all roads and paths in fact- they never end. You might think they do. You might think they just narrow and fade and disappear in the hoary depths of the forest? Not so, not at all! They merely go into hiding, and you just have to search a bit harder to see them. ~ Vera Nazarian

He stood up for me like the prince does for the princess in the fairy tales Scott used to read to me as a child. I'm not a princess, but Ryan is a knight. ~ Katie McGarry

Armchair warriors often fail - and we've been poisoned by these fairy tales ~ Don Henley

He made her want to believe in fairy tales and lies. In males who were decent and loving. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The fireplace is warm nook Penina Mezei's house in fairy tale in which the "fairy-tale-in Jukebox" can listen to while in the "fairy library" books are fairy tales and books of fairy tales, but also some fairy-tale subject. ~ Penina Mezei

Rage Against the Dying Light is my fairy tale, even though it is based on a true story. For everyone knows that fairy tales are not just fantasy. They are the inspiration that feeds our own courage and makes our dreams come true. ~ Jan Surasky

In England in the 19th century, advances in printing methods, combined with the rise of a prosperous middle class, engendered a booming new industry of books published just for children. Casting about for cheap story material, English publishers laid hands on the subtle, sensual adult fairy tales of the Continental tradition and revised them into simpler stories instilled with Victorian values. Although these simplified versions retained much of the violence of the older stories, elements of sexuality and moral complexity were carefully scrubbed away - along with the fiesty heroines who appeared everywhere in the older tales, tamed now into models of Victorian propiety and passivity. In the 20th century, the Walt Disney Studios watered down the tales further still in popular animated films like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, continuing the trend of turning active heroines into powerless damsels in distress. Walt Disney considered even the Victorian versions of the tales too dark for 20th century audiences. "It's just that people now don't want fairy stories the way they were written," Disney commented. "They were too rough." ~ Terri Windling

We believed the fairy tales we told our children and we loved them beyond reason even when we were green and bungling about it. We were children loving our children. And that's who we are still. ~ Marlena De Blasi

Aging and the prospect of dying by no means enhance the attractiveness of fictitious comforts to come in paradise, or the veracity of malicious myths about hellfire and damnation. Fear and feeblemindedness cannot be credibly pressed into service to support fantastic claims about the cosmos and our ultimate destiny.

Whether one would even consider turning to religion in advanced years has much to do with upbringing, which makes all the more important standing up to the presumptions of the religious in front of children. One would regard the Biblical events – a spontaneously igniting bush, a sea's parting, human parthenogenesis, a resurrected prophet and so on – that supposedly heralded God's intervention in our affairs as the stuff of fairy tales were it not for the credibility we unwittingly lend them by keeping quiet out of mistaken notions of propriety. ~ Jeffrey Tayler

At least that left hope for him. Except "Beauty and the Geek" wasn't exactly the proper translation of the popular fairy tale. ~ Kelly Moran

Why is that fairy-tales always treat marriage as an ending? And always such a perfectly happy one? ~ Salman Rushdie

My parents read me fairy tales every night and I used to believe I was a fairytale princess, like every young girl. I had all the Disney dressing-up costumes and would play every character. ~ Lily Collins

We all love stories, even if they're not true. As we grow up, one of the ways we learn about the world is through the stories we hear. Some are about particular events and personalities within our personal circles of family and friends. Some are part of the larger cultures we belong to - the myths, fables, and fairy tales about our own ways of life that have captivated people for generations. In stories that are told often, the line between fact and myth can become so blurred that we easily mistake one for the other. This is true of a story that many people believe about education, even though it's not real and never really was. It goes like this: Young children go to elementary school mainly to learn the basic skills of reading, writing, and mathematics. These skills are essential so they can do well academically in high school. If they go on to higher education and graduate with a good degree, they'll find a well-paid job and the country will prosper too. ~ Ken Robinson

Disheartened, enraptured, and strangely lightheaded, Grady emerged from the trees and walked back through town to the island bridge, his ankles and hands marked up with thorn scratches. ~ Molly Ringle

It's fun to twist fairy tales, but at the same time, I know I need to write stories that are different enough from each other that fans don't feel like they're just reading the same story over and over again. ~ Janette Rallison

Yesterday's fairy tale is today's fact. The magician is only one step ahead of his audience. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Each word was shaped with certainty, and I felt, more strongly than ever before in my life, that I had at last found my true path. I knew the story would change as I told it. No one can tell as tory without transforming it in some way; it is part of the magic of storytelling. Like the troubadors of the past, who hid their messages in poems, songs and fairy tales, I too would hide my true purpose [ ... ]
It was by telling stories that I would save myself. ~ Kate Forsyth

In the old fairy tales, often a 'moral' was tacked on at the end of the story - say, if a book was going to be marketed to young readers. And the morals don't really suit the stories at all, which makes them super weird - part of why I love the tradition so much. I do play with this, though I am more concerned with ethics than morals. ~ Kate Bernheimer

If you wish for something hard enough, the fairy tales teach us, you can get it in the end. But it's hardly ever the way you thought it would be, and the endings aren't always happy ones. ~ Jennifer Weiner

Snow White has always been one of my favorite fairy tales growing up. To be able to say, "I'm going to be Snow White" - it's crazy. It's an honor. ~ Lily Collins

There's a great power of imagination about these little creatures, and a creative fancy and belief that is very curious to watch ... I am sure that horrid matter-of-fact child-rearers ... do away with the child's most beautiful privilege. I am determined that Anny shall have a very extensive and instructive store of learning in Tom Thumbs, Jack-the-Giant-Killers, etc. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

There is no greater achievement than being a grandfather who tells fairy tales to grandchildren. ~ Eraldo Banovac

After a childhood reading fairy tales and myths, is it any wonder that when I began to write my own stories I included fairy tales? Fairy tales are storytelling at its most basic. They've been with mankind for as long as people have told stories to each other. Fairy tales speak to something intrinsic in humans - they touch our most primitive selves. How else to explain that the Cinderella story is told in nearly every society on earth? To think of fairy tales as merely stories for children is to ignore thousands of years when fairy tales were used to teach morality, to warn, and to entertain both children and adults. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

There weren't any fairy tales in the streets around me. If there was ever a
Cinderella, her glass slippers shattered under her weight and she limped home bleeding from the ball. ~ Seanan McGuire

I can certainly identify with The Villain. A Villain is someone who has a past, who is strongly opinionated, fearless, doesn't get intimated by anything, and went beyond suffering. It's an empowerment figure. ~ Nuno Roque

Fairy tales have a moral: Stay on the path. Don't trust wolves. Don't steal things, not even things you think no normal person would care about. Share your food but don't trust people who want to share their good with you; don't eat their shiny red apples, not their candy houses, nor any of it. Be nice, always nice, and polite to everyone: kings and beggars, witches and wounded bears. Don't break a promise. ~ Holly Black

Clichés are relatives of the fairy tale, and tropes aren't bad; they go with the territory. ~ Seanan McGuire

He rarely saw a doorway without advancing through it as if he owned it. Since he owned a good many doorways, he would have pointed out that this was a reasonable assumption. ~ Eloisa James

A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales. ~ Marie Curie

There's danger in separating yourself from everyone, not wanting anyone to see inside of you where you're vulnerable. We know the world isn't safe and perfect like the fairy tales. But if you let it eat away at you, when that one comes along, that woman you know is going to make your world for you, you won't see her, because you're too busy hiding. I almost missed my chance with her. ~ Christine Feehan

At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. Bat at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life,' can add to it. ~ C.S. Lewis

Anyway, it's unthinkable! Dragons and knights are born enemies. They need to be enemies just like dogs hate cats, cats hate mice and mice hate scientists. Without somebody to hate where would all the hate go? The hate would just boil up inside you, eat away and cause you to have indigestion then a heart attack. We need to release the anger, and we release it on dragons who release it back on us. We slay them and they roast us. It is the natural order of things, Emma. ~ Elias Zapple

I believe that the great stretches of forests in northern Europe, with their constant seasonal changes, their restricted views, their astonish biological diversity, their secret gifts and perils and the knowledge that you have to go through them to get anywhere else, created the themes and ethics of the fairy tales we know best. There are secrets, hidden identities, cunning disguises; there are rhythms of change like the changes of the seasons; there are characters, both human and animal, whose assistance can be earned or spurned; and there is
over and over again
the journey or quest, which leads first to knowledge and then to happiness. The forest is the place of trial in fairy stories, both dangerous and exciting. Coming to terms with the forest, surviving its terrors, utilising its gifts and gaining its help is the way to 'happy ever after. ~ Sara Maitland

A kid thinking about fairy tales and believing in fairy tales
Acts like a sick god, but like a god.
Because even though he affirms that what doesn't exist exists,
He knows things exist, that he exists,
He knows existing exists and doesn't explain itself,
And he knows there's no reason at all for anything to exist.
He knows being is the point.
All he doesn't know is that thought isn't the point.

(10/1/1917) ~ Alberto Caeiro