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1 " The universe has a much greater imagination than we do, which is why the real story of the universe is far more interesting than any of the fairy tales we have invented to describe it. "
― Lawrence M. Krauss
2 " The writing of fantasy is best left to those who have nothing better to do, as is indicated by the fairy tales of otherwise gifted writers like Robert Graves and John Ciardi. It isn't so much the difficulty of doing it right, without falling off the tightrope into the cold pits of allegory or mindless whimsy—the weary thing is that even if you bring it off, all you've done is write a fantasy, and so what? Life is dangerous, and escapism has become a dirty word. I feel the same way, being a child of my own critical times. I'd write the other stuff, the real books, if I could. Plenty nitty-gritty. If I could. "
― Peter S. Beagle
3 " Do you ever wonder about the fairy tales of life? "
― Lailah Gifty Akita , Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1)
4 " Once upon a time the fairy tales begin. But then they end and often you don't know really what has happened, what was meant to happen, you only know what you've been told, what the words suggest. "
― , The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories
5 " I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since. "
― G.K. Chesterton
6 " His words were almost soundless. " I've gotten to a really dark place, Melly. The darkest place I've ever been." " You don't have to be there anymore," she told him gently. " Don't you know what happens at the darkest point of the day?" He stroked her soft lower lip with the ball of one thumb. " What?" She rubbed her fingers soothingly along his muscled forearms. " A beautiful, brand-new day begins, and it's all fresh and full of promise." She smiled into his gaze. " That's why magic in the fairy tales happens at midnight, you know. When you reach that point, you have the power to change everything. "
7 " That day and night, the bleeding and the screaming, had knocked something askew for Esme, like a picture swinging crooked on a wall. She loved the life she lived with her mother. It was beautiful. It was, she sometimes thought, a sweet emulation of the fairy tales they cherished in their lovely, gold-edged books. They sewed their own clothes from bolts of velvet and silk, ate all their meals as picnics, indoors or out, and danced on the rooftop, cutting passageways through the fog with their bodies. They embroidered tapestries of their own design, wove endless melodies on their violins, charted the course of the moon each month, and went to the theater and the ballet as often as they liked--every night last week to see Swan Lake again and again. Esme herself could dance like a faerie, climb trees like a squirrel, and sit so still in the park that birds would come to perch on her. Her mother had taught her all that, and for years it had been enough. But she wasn't a little girl anymore, and she had begun to catch hints and glints of another world outside her pretty little life, one filled with spice and poetry and strangers. "
― Laini Taylor , Lips Touch: Three Times
8 " The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same. "
― Lois Lowry , Number the Stars
9 " [The fairy tale] is accused of giving children a false impression of the world they live in. But I think no literature that children could read gives them less of a false impression. I think what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world to be like the fairy tales. I think that I did expect school to be like the school stories. The fantasies did not deceive me: the school stories did. All stories in which children have adventures and successes which are possible, in the sense that they do not break the laws of nature, but almost infinitely improbable, are in more danger than the fairy tales of raising false expectations… This distinction holds for adult reading too. The dangerous fantasy is always superficially realistic. The real victim of wishful reverie does not batten on the Odyssey, The Tempest, or The Worm Ouroboros: he (or she) prefers stories about millionaires, irresistible beauties, posh hotels, palm beaches and bedroom scenes—things that really might happen, that ought to happen, that would have happened if the reader had had a fair chance. For, as I say, there are two kinds of longing. The one is an askesis, a spiritual exercise, and the other is a disease. "
10 " The wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards; and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other. "
