Magical Stories Quotes

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

How can you take such a risk? This could mean anything! It could mean nothing at all! Haven't you heard of fiction? This might be just from the imagination of a poet! ~ Jason Ellis

The French fairy tale writers were so popular and prolific that when their stories were eventually collected in the 18th century, they filled forty–one volumes of a massive publication called the Cabinet des Fées. Charles Perrault is the French fairy tale writer whom history has singled out for attention, but the majority of tales in the Cabinet des Fées were penned by women writers who ran and attended the leading salons: Marie–Catherine d'Aulnoy, Henriette Julie de Murat, Marie–Jeanne L'Héritier, and numerous others. These were educated women with an unusual degree of social and artistic independence, and within their use of the fairy tale form one can find distinctly subversive, even feminist subtext. ~ Terri Windling

Being an owl was simple. It was survival... An owl thinks only: fly, hunt, breed, live. People think, and wonder, and dream, and speak of it all. ~ Elise Forier Edie

All proper libraries include a trace of everlasting magic. ~ Erin Forbes

Via the power of the swamplands I cast a double-decker Gris-Gris on my pirogue, to give Ol' Alfonse a VERY, Very Nasty bellyache."
"Hey now Cricket," How-Ya-Do scolded, "you better watch-out playing around with them Voodoo spells."
"Says who," Cricket countered combatively.
"You know you ain't supposed to Conja no Gris-Gris. You be just "a little Cajun-girl," not a Voodoo Priestess, like Madame Teche" How-Ya-Do reminded her, "what are you gonna do if that Gris-Gris bounces off of a tree `n whammies somebody-else by mistake? ~ Darwun St. James

Fairy tales for adult readers remained popular throughout Europe well into the 19th century - particularly in Germany, where the Brothers Grimm published their massive collection of German fairy tales (revised and edited to reflect the Brothers' patriotic and patriarchal ideals), providing inpiration for novelists, poets, and playrights among the German Romantics. Recently, fairy tale scholars have re–discovered the enormous body of work produced by women writers associated with the German Romantics: Grisela von Arnim, Sophie Tieck Bernhardi, Karoline von Günderrode, Julie Berger, and Sophie Albrecht, to name just a few. ~ Terri Windling

I've read science fiction and fantasy all my life – though when you're a child, they just call that "books." The first book I ever read on my own was The Neverending Story. I studied classics at university, and in ancient literature, monsters, witches, magic, curses, and impossible machines aren't genre, they're just Tuesday afternoon. I had no idea that I was writing fantasy at first, because I was so saturated in Greek literature that it never occurred to me that my talking animals and sentient mazes were anything but realism. Our instinct toward folklore and magical stories, parables and imagining the future, are as much a part of the human experiences as divorce, grief, falling in love, politics, or raising children. I've always read fantastic literature, because it's always seemed truest to me. It makes the metaphorical literal and is all the more powerful for that immediacy and directness. I love genre fiction for the infinite expanse of stories it can tell – and it's been my constant companion since I was a very small child. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

Any time evil comes into a place it is because someone give it permission. ~ Elise Forier Edie

It's important, when you see magic, to recognize it. You don't often get a second chance. ~ Cassie Beasley

I thought at first, even knowing you could not die, it seemed you could not live. ~ Elise Forier Edie

The science of magic & the magic of science ~ P.M. Perry

The Story of the Volcano, An Aztec Myth
Once upon a time there was a princess named Iztaccihuatl, more beautiful than any woman, and a handsome warrior Popocatepetl, who loved her. They were to be married, and all the kingdoms rejoiced... ~ Elise Forier Edie

Annie stared into the flames for a while and then cleared her throat. "Has it occurred to you that maybe there's actually a monster out there?" she asked. ~ Elise Forier Edie

[T]he incomparable Diana Wynne Jones, one of the finest mythic fiction writers of our age, who left us too early (due to cancer) two days ago. I'm so grateful to her for the extraordinary books she has left behind, which have inspired a whole generation of younger writers. She was writing brilliant YA fantasy before the genre (as we know it now) even existed; she was writing enchanting "wizard school" books long before Harry Potter was a gleam in Rowling's eye; and her knowledge of how to weave mythic/folkloric themes into contemporary fiction was second to no one's. Diana will be terribly missed, but through her magical stories, her light will stay on. ~ Terri Windling

You were the first boy I ever kissed. Is that right?"
"I would hope so," he said, his mouth soft as he smiled. "You were ten years old."
I laughed but I felt tears building in my throat and burning my eyes. "You kissed me in the orchard. I dared you to do it." A memory flicked by, the orchard in bloom, heavenly scents, the thrum of bees in the blossoms.
"I wanted to, I promise ---" his laughing face, so close to mine. ~ Elise Forier Edie

He said only farmers and school children really appreciated the beauty of a snow day. ~ Elise Forier Edie

Don't expect the unexpected. Let the unexpected expect you. ~ Kiara S. Maharaj

Though now we think of fairy tales as stories intended for very young children, this is a relatively modern idea. In the oral tradition, magical stories were enjoyed by listeners young and old alike, while literary fairy tales (including most of the tales that are best known today) were published primarily for adult readers until the 19th century. ~ Terri Windling

Written words, he told me, were forever. Stories stretched beyond death, like time itself, ever changing us, but themselves, unchanged. ~ Elise Forier Edie

I think loads of people see acting, when they're kids, as these magical stories that just happen within the context of the film or the play or the cartoon or whatever they're seeing. They don't imagine that there are actually people that go and do that for a living. ~ Rebecca Hall

It's a big wide world, after all, and Mattawa, Washington, perched on the edge of it, is somewhere in between Nowhere and Nothing At All. ~ Elise Forier Edie

He ran from her suddenly, swift and quiet like a mountain cat among the high peeks of Eld mountain. She watched him dive in among the trees, and the autumn winds shoke suddenly at his heels. She sad down on a fallen trunk and dropped her head among the knees. A great soft warmth shiled her from the wind, and she looked up and saw into Gules Lyons quiet, golden eyes.
What is it, white one?
She knelt suddenly and flung his arms around the great mane, and burried her face against him.
I wish that I had wings and could fly and fly and never come back.
What has troubled you, Orams powerful child? What can trouble you? What can such a small one as Coren of Sirle say to touch you?
For a long moment she did not answer. And then she said, her fingers tight around the gold tangeled fur.
He has taken my heart and offered it back to me. And I thought he was harmless. ~ Patricia A. McKillip

The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offshore Lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind. ~ M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

Gardening has a magical quality when you are a child. ~ Barbara Damrosch

Under the veneer of Westernization, the cultures of the Indian world - which have existed for 30,000 years! - continue to live. Sometimes in a magical way, sometimes in the shadows. ~ Carlos Fuentes

Isn't it funny how trusting husbands are? How easily they eat the food put in front of them by their wives, without ever wondering if there might be something wrong with it.

You could mix anything in it, and they would never know. ~ Sudha Kuruganti

I've heard a lot of great success stories from writers - how so many of them struggled to get where they are and how persistence pays off. I learned that some writers are good at doing readings and some are not so good at it. ~ Kevin Sampsell

Tests are stories we tell the next generation of programmers on a project. ~ Roy Osherove

Heroic origin stories and polemical counterstories may give us momentary emotional satisfaction by inviting us to despise cartoonish renderings of our perceived rivals and enemies. The price we all pay, though, is tunnel vision, mutual recrimination, and stalemate. For the sake not just of the science but of all the suffering people whom the science should be serving, it is time for us all to learn and to tell better, more honest stories. ~ Anne Harrington

It's a magical way to spend a summer - privacy at sea, and fun and friends in port. ~ Ivana Trump

If we get you in the early years of your life and we fill your head with all of the Catholic stories, then it's very hard for you to stop being Catholic. Catholics are Catholics because they like being Catholic. ~ Andrew Greeley

When I go to the movies, one of my strongest desires is to be shown something new. I want to go to new places, meet new people, have new experiences. When I see Hollywood formulas mindlessly repeated, a little something dies inside of me: I have lost two hours to boors who insist on telling me stories I have heard before. ~ Roger Ebert

It wasn't easy, but I endured. There were stories about a land filled with trees, and game, where there were no wars or disease. I wish I could show you how beautiful this land was. After spending a lifetime in Europe, it was Eden. ~ Rebecca Trogner

In the end all collaborations are love stories. ~ Twyla Tharp

Why do we travel to remote locations? To prove our adventurous spirit or to tell stories about incredible things? We do it to be alone amongst friends and to find ourselves in a land without man. ~ George Leigh Mallory

In the Seventies, my children played in the street, read politically incorrect stories, ate home-cooked food and occasional junk and, yes, were sometimes smacked. ~ Laurie Graham

It is important for leaders to know their stories; to get them straight; to communicate them effectively, particularly to those who are in the thrall of rival stories; and, above all, to embody in their lives the stories that they tell. ~ Howard E. Gardner

The brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character. ~ Mel Brooks

We are all a volume on the shelf of the ... library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. ~ Deb Caletti

There is no border in my films. You can see yourself in these stories. This is the greatest thing about the power of cinema. It's very present. It's all there. You can't escape it. ~ Lav Diaz

I want to look beyond the legends, to find the real story of Scotland. And it's every bit as thrilling. ~ Neil Oliver

I wish this was a love story. A love story about lovers whose mouths meet like two puzzle pieces fitting perfectly into place, about the electric feeling of one person's name on the other's tongue because no one has ever spoken them out loud like that before. About people who spend the night together looking at the stars until entire constellations exist within them. Everyone is perfect in that indistinct way most characters are and every perfectly constructed scene in their fictional lives is somehow more real than anything you've known or lived. Love stories, romances, leave a person secure in the knowledge they'll end Happily Ever After and who wouldn't want a story like that? I wish this was a love story because I know how it goes in one like mine, where the only moments of reprieve are the spaces between its lines. ~ Courtney Summers

Oh, you've made plenty of short stories long. But never, ever, have you made a long story short. ~ Harlan Coben

I actually thought 'Desperate Housewives' finished very well. I just think there's still stories to be told. I feel like I get that from fans that they weren't done watching those people's lives. ~ Teri Hatcher

A story has to break your heart or it's not worth telling. ~ Marty Rubin

I'm from the South, so I tend to tell stories. That's how we express ourselves. ~ Faith Prince

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing 'Maria' from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up. ~ Adam Sandler

That's the whole burden of this novel - the loss of those illusions that give such color to the world that you don't care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

It's safer to use fiction, which will not be taken for literal truth, but which, like Jesus' stories, can tell the truth indirectly yetpowerfully. ~ Wayne Martindale

Human beings need stories, and we're looking for them in all kinds of places; whether it's television, whether it's comic books or movies, radio plays, whatever form, people are hungry for stories. ~ Paul Auster

AC/DC, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper - I learned stories of all these guys. That's when I fell in love with Queen, which is one of my favorite bands of all time ... I started paying attention to what made music good. I started paying attention to why I liked it. ~ Rico Love

British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography. ~ Lee Child

Having room to run and having just the space to use your imagination and create stories out of everyday life, I think that had a lot to do with me wanting write. And write songs ~ Taylor Swift

People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book. I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable. ~ Martin Amis

Will Cato's alien buddies come en masse and invade Earth? He's not sure but he'll try to keep humanity in the loop. ~ John Hopkins

Bill Pearson is definitely a man to talk to, especially in the afternoon when he's had a couple of drinks because he's got so many stories and anecdotes. ~ Duncan Jones

But this, all this, isn't the story I'm trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people's stories and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you're still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that's what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on, and we're the stories we're living now.
Aren't we? ~ Patrick Ness

A beautiful rain is a treasure box. Inside this magical box there is an artistic umbrella, there is a pretty rainbow, there is a sweet bird singing and there is a lovely smell of earth! Something wonderful has a great potential to create some other wonderful things! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Begin. Keep on beginning. Nibble on everything.
Take a hike. Teach yourself to whistle. Lie.
The older you get the more they'll want your stories.
Make them up. Talk to stones. Short-out electric
fences. Swim with the sea turtle into the moon. Learn
how to die. Eat moonshine pie. Drink wild geranium
tea. Run naked in the rain. Everything that happens
will happen and none of us will be safe from it.
Pull up anchors. Sit close to the god of night.
Lie still in a stream and breathe water. Climb to the
top of the highest tree until you come to the branch
where the blue heron sleeps. Eat poems for breakfast.
Wear them on your forehead. Lick the mountain's
bare shoulder. Measure the color of days
around your mother's death. Put your hands over
your face and listen to what they tell you. ~ Ellen Kort

A good tattoo always has a story that runs deeper than the skin, and Inked tells that story. ~ Tara Dakides

I felt more doubtful than usual with 'Goon Squad,' because I knew that the book's genre wasn't easily named - Novel? Stories? Novel-in-stories? - and I worried that its lack of a clear category would count against it. My hopes for it were pretty modest. ~ Jennifer Egan

Human lives seldom conform to the conventions of fiction. Chekhov says that it is in the beginnings and endings of stories that we are most tempted to lie. ~ Wallace Stegner

I'm in the storytelling business, and so you're always drawn to the unusual. And early on, I discovered that's the easiest way to tell stories. If you come up through a newspaper as I did, your whole goal is to get a story on the front page, and you only get something on the front page if it's unusual ~ Malcolm Gladwell

When I was younger, I loved math. Everything about math. But in school, math now has letters. Like what does x equal? There are also long stories with characters, and although the story is supposed to end with some number, all the words block my path to getting there. ~ Lynda Mullaly Hunt

With movies, you are always in search is a good story, one that everyone will relate to and love. I love finding those stories and creating a visual world to tell the story. ~ Don Bluth

I'm generally not a social dramatist or comedy writer. My interests have always been more in psychological stories or personal relations and comic ideas. ~ Woody Allen