Sprites Quotes

As the years passed, new myths arose to explain the mysterious objects the strangers brought from the land of the dead. A nineteenth-century missionary recorded, for example, an African explanation of what happened when captains descended into the holds of their ships to fetch trading goods like cloth. The Africans believed that these goods came not from the ship itself but from a hole that led into the ocean. Sea sprites weave this cloth in an "oceanic factory, and, whenever we need cloth, the captain ... goes to this hole and rings a bell." The sea sprites hand him up their cloth, and the captain "then throws in, as payment, a few dead bodies of black people he has bought from those bad native traders who have bewitched their people and sold them to the white men." The myth was not so far from reality. For what was slavery in the American South, after all, but a system for transforming the labor of black bodies, via cotton plantations, into cloth? ~ Adam Hochschild

Because of all the things I've experienced on this journey - shrinking and growing, flying sprites, living chess pieces - not a one of them is more magical than this moment. ~ A.G. Howard

I do not believe that there are any such things as gods and goddesses, for exactly the same reasons as I do not believe there are fairies, goblins or sprites, and these reasons should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten. ~ A.C. Grayling

You got the list?" Lewis asked.
"What the hell is the deal with the temperature?"
"Razel is not allowed to sweat," Maximo answered. "If she does,
fanatics will appear from nowhere like mischievous sprites and bottle
each drop and then sell it on eBay for millions. ~ Elizabeth Morgan

No duelling. No summoning of imps or other manifestations of elements potentially damaging to the records, including but not limited to: elementals, imps, sprites, ifrits, goblins, vile maidens, elohim, and major, minor and inferior spawn. No praying. No cursing, except by staff. The library is closed on public holidays. Donations welcome."
-Demonia Library ~ Justina Robson

You can't fix this,' she ground out.
'That is not true. There is nothing anyone could hold over you that could not be overcome.'
'By what?' she demanded. 'Rainbows and sprites and the everlasting good wishes of your family? It won't work, Gregory. It won't. The Bridgertons may be powerful, but you cannot change the past, and you cannot bend the future to suit your whims ... You don't understand. You can't possibly. You are all so happy, so perfect.'
'We are not.'
'You are. You don't even know that you are, and you can't conceive that the rest of us are not, that we might struggle and try and be good and still not receive what we wish for. ~ Julia Quinn

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands. Curtsied when you have and kissed The wild waves whist, Foot is featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Ariel's song, scene II, Act I ~ William Shakespeare

Fingers locked around Jeb's neck, I tug his short ponytail. To help us fit in at a banquet, we're both in costume. He's supposed to be an elfin knight, so sprites drew his hair across his ears to cover their rounded tips. I like it this way. His strong jawline and expressive features take center stage.
"Figured they'd put you in a hat," I tease.
"Nah. Those are reserved for worms with wings. ~ A.G. Howard

She watched with morbid fascination as they gathered at the stumps at the ends of the man's wrists, the old scar tissue the only place on him unclaimed by Fener, but the paths the sprites took to those stumps touched not a single tattooed line. The flies dance a dance of avoidance - but for all that, they were eager to dance. ~ Steven Erikson

We had some really powerful technology - Atari always was a technology-driven company, and we were very keen on keeping the technological edge on everything. There's a whole bunch of things that we innovated. We made the first computer that did stamps or sprites, we did screen-mapping for the very first time, and a lot of stuff like that. ~ Nolan Bushnell

Devic Magic
Woodland sprites, elves and nymphs
Waltz in time take a glimpse
Fairies hide the forest wit
Mushrooms fly, agarics hit ~ William O'Brien

This letter is written on the skin of one of the water sprites who drowned your parents.'
'Ick!' I cried, and dropped the letter on the kitchen table. ~ Charlaine Harris

Finally, I'd say to anyone who wants to tell these tales, don't be afraid to be superstitious. If you have a lucky pen, use it. If you speak with more force and wit when wearing one red sock and one blue one, dress like that. When I'm at work I'm highly superstitious. My own superstition has to do with the voice in which the story comes out. I believe that every story is attended by its own sprite, whose voice we embody when we tell the tale, and that we tell it more successfully if we approach the sprite with a certain degree of respect and courtesy. These sprites are both old and young, male and female, sentimental and cynical, sceptical and credulous, and so on, and what's more, they're completely amoral: like the air-spirits who helped Strong Hans escape from the cave, the story-sprites are willing to serve whoever has the ring, whoever is telling the tale. To the accusation that this is nonsense, that all you need to tell a story is a human imagination, I reply, 'Of course, and this is the way my imagination works. ~ Philip Pullman

Lorien who loves twilights and flittering shadows, and sweet scents borne upon evening winds, who is the lord of dreams and imaginings, sat nigh and whispered swift noiseless words, while his sprites played half-heard tunes beside him like music stealing out into the dark from distant dwellings... - Book of Lost Tales Part 1 ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

You shaved your chest?"
He looks down at the sheer black stripes. "Actually, there wasn't a mirror in my room. Gossamer did it after my bath, when she shaved my face. She said elves are hairless everywhere but their heads."
Everywhere? I pictured him naked - Gossamer touching his abs, among other places. "That sprite saw you in the nude?"
He clears his throat. "More than just her. I think there were about thirty of them climbing on me at one point."
A surge of jealousy scalds me. My fists clench. "Thirty sprites touched your naked body?"
"Chill about the sprites, all right? Flying lima beans aren't my thing. ~ A.G. Howard

Atari always was a technology-driven company, and we were very keen on keeping the technological edge on everything. There's a whole bunch of things that we innovated. We made the first computer that did stamps or sprites, we did screen-mapping for the very first time, and a lot of stuff like that. We had some of the most sophisticated sound-creating systems, and were instrumental in MIDI. ~ Nolan Bushnell

Do you enjoy stories, young lady?" "What kind of stories?" "The best kind, of course," Slowswift said, tapping his book. "The kind about monsters and myths. Longtales, some call them - stories told by skaa around the fires, whispering of mistwraiths, sprites, and brollins and such. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents; what we need is music of the earth, everyday music..music one can live in like a house. ~ Jean Cocteau

I climbed the hill of firs and looked down over the fields of mist and silver in the moonlight. The shadows of the ferns and sweet wild grasses along the edge of the woods were like a dance of sprites. Away beyond the harbour, below the moonlight, was a sky of purple and amber where a sunset had been. ~ L.M. Montgomery

At Halloween, when fairy sprites
Perform their mystic gambols,
When ilka witch her neebour greets,
On their nocturnal rambles;
When elves at midnight-hour are seen,
Near hollow caverns sportin,
Then lads an' lasses aft convene,
In hopes to ken their fortune,
By freets that night. ~ Janet Little

These be fine things, an if they be not sprites.
That'said a brave god and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him.
--Caliban
Act II, scene 2, lines 116-118) ~ William Shakespeare

The people of your world became so stupid and rude that my companions and I no longer enjoyed teaching them. You must surely have heard of us: we were called oracles, nymphs, spirits, fairies, household gods, lemures, larvas, lamias, sprites, water-nymphs, incubi, shades, spirits of the dead, specters and ghosts. ~ Cyrano De Bergerac

You want poetry, first you have to muck in with humanity, you have to fight with paper and pencil for weeks and weeks until your heart bleeds: verses aren't channelled into your head by angels or muses or sprites of nature. ~ Stephen Fry

Colors shift like smoke within the branch beneath our feet. Sprites jump from leaf to leaf, leaving sprinklings of glittery dust in the air behind them. Droplets of water are strung like pearls from the silver strands of a spider's web. Bluebottle glow-bugs stick to the leaves and branches, lighting up the night with their blue-green bodies. And high above us, clouds are draped like sashes of color across the sky. Amethyst, azure, jade. ~ Rachel Morgan

Trust not in Sprites nor the motivations of a Gnome. ~ Jefferson Smith

Isaac stopped her at the bottom of the stairs with a crooked smile. "I would wish you sweet dreams, but how can they be memorable if I won't be in them? ~ Chloe Jacobs

The world is not a mechanical place, sir, whatever you might think. Sprites and wizards do not exist, in this universe at least. But there are beautiful truths to the world positioned so closely to your face that you have failed to see them your entire life. If you wish it, I will show them to you."
"Heaven," Barnett said quickly. "Will I go there?"
"No."
"What is it then?" he whispered. "Just black?"
"Darker than that, sir. Two minutes and two seconds. ~ Exurb1a

Adrianus, this is not some mission fueled by a vendetta. This isn't revenge. This is the future of not only sprites, but also mankind. ~ Leigh Michael

There arose a wild, impetuous, precipitate, mad inexorable, furious, dark, lacerating, merciless, combative, contentious badb, which was shrieking and fluttering over their heads. And there arose also the satyrs, and sprites, and the maniacs of the valleys, and the witches, and goblins, and owls, and destroying demons of the air and firmament, and the demoniac phantom host; and they were inciting and sustaining valour and battle with them. ~ Katharine Mary Briggs

Isaac could see the pale gleam of a face, dark eyes and a thatch of untidy dark hair. A boy, he thought, and then suddenly it seemed to him that it was not a boy but a sprite beyond the window, light and eager like flame in the wind. But sprites were children's tales. He was a convinced but hard-worked rationalist, always hard at it reconvincing himself of his convictions. During his bad times this was not difficult, but during his good times the bright shards on the floor of the world had a trick of turning into shining pools that reflected something, and he was distinctly startled until he saw a ragged sleeve come up and wipe the misted glass clear. Only a boy. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

Too bad you need both hands for crawling," I said. "We could use some sunshine in here."

"Next time, I'll be sure to ask the sprites for a flashlight."

"And a bottle of water. I think I've swallowed enough dust to shit a brick later. ~ Kelly Meding

A woman can't be, until a girl dies ... I mean the sprites that girls are, so different from us, all their fancies, their illusions, their flower world, the dreams they live in. ~ Christina Stead

On the conversion of the European tribes to Christianity the ancient pagan worship was by no means incontinently abandoned. So wholesale had been the conversion of many peoples, whose chiefs or rulers had accepted the new faith on their behalf in a summary manner, that it would be absurd to suppose that any, general acquiescence in the new gospel immediately took place. Indeed, the old beliefs lurked in many neighbourhoods, and even a renaissance of some of them occurred in more than one area. Little by little, however, the Church succeeded in rooting out the public worship of the old pagan deities, but it found it quite impossible to effect an entire reversion of pagan ways, and in the end compromised by exalting the ancient deities to the position of saints in its calendar, either officially, or by usage. In the popular mind, however, these remained as the fairies of woodland and stream, whose worship in a broken-down form still flourished at wayside wells and forest shrines. The Matres, or Mother gods, particularly those of Celtic France and Ireland, the former of which had come to be Romanized, became the bonnes dames of folklore, while the dusii and pilosi, or hairy house-sprites, were so commonly paid tribute that the Church introduced a special question concerning them into its catechism of persons suspected of pagan practice. Nevertheless, the Roman Church, at a somewhat later era, reversed its older and more catholic policy, and sternly set its face against the cultu ~ Lewis Spence

Apart from such visits, for the first time in her life Eliza was truly alone. In the beginning, unfamiliar sounds, nocturnal sounds, disturbed her, but as the days passed she came to know them: soft-pawed animals under the eaves, the ticking of the warming range, floorboards shivering in the cooling nights. And their were unexpected benefits to her solitary life: alone in the cottage, Eliza discovered that the characters from her fairy tales became bolder. She found fairies playing in the spiders' webs, insects whispering incantations on the windowsills, fire sprites spitting and hissing in the range. Sometimes in the afternoons, Eliza would sit on the rocking chair listening to them. And late at night, when they were all asleep, she would spin their stories into her own tales. ~ Kate Morton

Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they're all we have. ~ Yann Martel

When the zebra-striped lizards return, bulbous eyes twisting in every direction, they carry a platter garnished with dried fruit and something that resembles a duck. It's plucked and roasted but still has its head intact. A warm, herbal scent tickles my nose. At least it's cooked.
"May I introduce you all to the main course?" Morpheus spreads out an arm with dramatic flair. "Dinner, meet your worthy adversaries, the hungry guests."
My tongue dries to sandpaper as the bird's eyes pop open, and it hobbles to stand on webbed feet, flesh brown and glistening with glaze and oil. There's a bell hung around its neck, and it jingles as the duck bows to greet everyone.
This cannot be happening.
Morpheus drags the heavy mallet from beside his chair and pounds it on the table like a judge's gavel. "Now that we're all acquainted, let the walloping begin."
Gossamer launches from Morpheus's shoulder and leaves the room with the other sprites as mass confusion erupts. All the guests leap to their feet, mallets in hand, to chase the jingling duck. ~ A.G. Howard

You are the best!"
He smiled. "Remember this always, and we will have no more problems between us in the future. ~ Chloe Jacobs

Sprites glitter in air that stinks of freshly spilled blood. The revel will go on, I realize. Everything will go on.

But I am not sure that I can. ~ Holly Black