Fantasy Books Quotes

• There are relatively few science fiction or fantasy books with the main character being an old person.

  Elizabeth Moon

  Book, Character, Fiction

  52 Copy quote

• The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real, for a moment at least, that long magic moment before we wake.

  George R. R. Martin

  Dream, Real, Writing

  George R.R. Martin (2008). “Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective”, p.215, Hachette UK

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• Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end.

  George R. R. Martin

  Summer, Sweet, Wine

  George R.R. Martin (2008). “Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective”, p.215, Hachette UK

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• I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams... And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they wont' just be able to take one, they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight.

  Philip Pullman

  Flower, Clouds, Light

  Philip Pullman (2007). “The Amber Spyglass”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli.

  George R. R. Martin

  Gold, Tofu, Azure

  George R.R. Martin (2008). “Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective”, p.215, Hachette UK

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• A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged?

  Jane Yolen

  Children, Book, Dark

  9 Copy quote

• I always hated those fantasy books where, at the end, all the kids had to go home. At the end of a Narnia book, you always got shown the door. Same with The Wizard Of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth. You get kicked out of your magic land. It's like, "By the way, here's your next surprise: You get to go home!" And the kids are all like, "Yay, we get to go home!" I never bought that. Did anybody buy that?

  Lev Grossman

  Book, Kids, Home

  Interview with Jason Heller, www.avclub.com. August 26, 2009.

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• The censors don't bother with fantasy books, especially old ones. They can't understand them. They think it's all kids' stuff. They'd die if they knew what The Chronicles of Narnia were really about.

  G. Willow Wilson

  Book, Kids, Thinking

  G. Willow Wilson (2012). “Alif the Unseen”, p.71, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• So much of the way books get classified has to do with marketing decisions. I think it's more useful to think of literary books and sci-fi/fantasy books as existing on a continuum.

  Karen Russell

  Book, Thinking, Decision

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Back in middle school, Catherine and I had gone through this stage where all we would read were fantasy books. We'd consume them like M&M's, by the fistful, J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks and Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander. Susan Boone looked, to me, like the queen of the elves (there's almost always an elf queen in fantasy books). I mean, she was shorter than me and had on a strange lineny outfit in pale blues and greens.

  Meg Cabot

  Queens, Book, School

  4 Copy quote

• And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are: Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth.

  Jane Yolen

  Hate, Book, Fire

  4 Copy quote

• Teen problem novels? I can go through them like a box of chocolates. And there are fantasy books out now that need a lot more editing. Fantasy got to be so popular that people began to think 'We don't need to be as diligent with the razor blade,' but they do.

  Tamora Pierce

  Book, Thinking, Editing

  4 Copy quote

• As a child I was really into fantasy books with elves and goblins and swords, and I went through a phase for a few years when I was reading endless series. But in the end I became totally fed-up with all these sub-Tolkien rip-offs because they all end up doing the same old things and there's no rigour to it.

  Jonathan Stroud

  Children, Rip, Book

  "A kind of magic". Interview with Michelle Pauli, www.theguardian.com. October 7, 2010.

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