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...

Your love life is insignificant when it comes to raising your children to be respectable human beings. The moment you see them suffer or lower their standards because of your selfishness, is the day you...

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...

If you cannot see the fineness in my Hammer, you’d best look at him with better eyes.

I really feel that we’re not giving children enough credit for distinguishing what’s right and what’s wrong. I, for one, devoured fairy tales as a little girl. I certainly didn’t believe that kissing frogs would...

Dr. Manning said he’d thought at first it might be sleeping sickness, or even narcolepsy, whatever that was, but – no, Pete was healthy enough physically. Manoel growled that the boy was bone-lazy, spending his...

Rarely do wonder tales end unhappily. They triumph over death. The tale begins with “Once upon a time” or “Once there was” and never really ends when it ends. The ending is actually the beginning....

Fairy tales were stupid. And dangerous.

I have always been quite good at falling in love, but I don’t pretend to know anything about literal happily ever afters. 

Stand still while I yell at you.

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....

Once upon a time, they say, there was a girl…there was a boy…there was a person who was in trouble. And this is what she did…and what he did…and how they learned to survive it....

I fear nothing when I am doing right,’ said Jack.’Then,’ said the lady in the red cap, ‘you are one of those who slay giants.

Fairy tales are not real. However, myths are the historical notes of those who were much wiser than ourselves. We therefore have no right to judge legends; lest we dare challenge demigods and angels.

Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of scientific verity. On the contrary. The...

Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon...

As she put it, she knew of nothing so ravishing as having a child whom she could whip whenever she was in a bad mood.(“The Queen Fantasque”)

We’re a couple of travelers!” I called up to her. “I’m Briony, and this is Ella!””Grammy said I ought not to talk to strangers!” she called back.”We’re not strangers!” Ella shouted. “We’re with the union!”I...

It’s just that, right now, I want to hear you promise me that if we do run out of time and I go mad, like Miranda, it ends with me. The curse ends here, because...

Plus, I happened to be a history nerd. Why else would I be interested in a guy born in the year 519?

Leo, that’s Snow White,” Piper said.

There were lots of things in this lifetime that I’d doubted, precious little I’d known for sure. But in that moment, I knew I would save her, or die trying.

love is an invisible game, its something which you feel more and see less and what you feel you imagine it’s real but you know it’s just a blind view, it’s just an illusion, a...

He was furious with himself for having lived these last days on a wish. On a lie. A kiss does not make the future. Love alone does not make a life.

Fairy tales are such evil stories for young children. Every time I’m in a mess I expect a long-haired posh-speaking man to come trotting into my life (on a horse of course, literally trotting himself…)...

If this were a fairy tale, this would be the part where the fishboy appears and Diana shoots him through the heart. Because he is a tragic hero, he’s our fucking Gatsby, and he lived...

Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict. We are all misfit for the world, and somehow we must fit in, fit in with other people, and thus we must...

But as she continued and finished her tale, I could tell that her heart was elsewhere, and when she excused herself to go to bed, she left without saying good night. After that, the princesses...

I believe that our lives, just like fairy tales – the stories that have been written by us humans, through our own experiences of living – will always have a Hero and a Heroine, a...

How crazy it would be if the moon did spin and the earth stood still and the sun went dim!How absolutely ludicrous if snakes could walk and kids could fly and mimes did talk!How silly...

a gang of unpredictable ruffians by day who turned to enthralling storytellers after dark. “I would sometimes join them, and listen for a great part of the night to some of the finest fairy tales...

Princess, princess, youngest daughter,Open up and let me in!Or else your promise by the waterIsn’t worth a rusty pin.Keep your promise, royal daughter,Open up and let me in!

Everything that ever happened is just stories now, Earl. But it was all very real to people while it was happening. Wasn’t it?