Tales Quotes - Page 31

• As a self-respecting dude, I'd never believed in fairy tales, but in that moment, I did. I'd found my angel to live happily-ever-after with.

  Katie Ashley

  Angel, Self, Fairy Tale

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• There is no sadder tale in the annals of architecture than the virtual disappearance of the defining architectural form of the Modern Movement - publicly sponsored housing.

  Martin Filler

  Defining, Movement, Architecture

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• Besides, I'd heard too many Karen Carpenter tales at Gladstone PTA meetings, and they often took the form of boasts. The prestigious diagnosis of anorexia seemed much coveted not only by the students but by their mothers, who would compete over whose daughter ate less. No wonder the poor girls were a mess.

  Lionel Shriver

  Girl, Daughter, Mother

  Lionel Shriver (2011). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.301, Counterpoint Press

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• Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale.

  Cory Doctorow

  Fiction, Surreal, Virtuoso

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• There are constant cycles in history. There is loss, but it is always followed by regeneration. The tales of our elders who remember such cycles are very important to us now.

  Carmen Agra Deedy

  Loss, Important, Remember

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• A beautifully written tale that lives somewhere between landscape and memory,
  where regret becomes a prison, and a story told often enough becomes truth.

  Brunonia Barry

  Memories, Regret, Stories

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• I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent that I just said, "This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, but it's not for me."

  George Carlin

  Believe, School, Thinking

  "The New York Times", August 20, 1995.

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• Everybody expects the fairy tale - you're going to be together forever with somebody. I don't really subscribe to that. I'd love that to happen if that happened, but ten years is enough. Ten years is a good thing with somebody, I think. It's a nice thing. A lot of good love can happen in ten years.

  Jim Carrey

  Nice, Good Love, Thinking

  "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Interview with Carlo Cavagna, www.aboutfilm.com. April 2004.

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• There's a tricky tone where you try to get some humor into a movie that's also a tough tale of murder and revenge. You have to ice skate rather carefully between the humor and the action tension part of the drama.

  Walter Hill

  Revenge, Drama, Ice

  Source: collider.com

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• I have not much faith in women in fiction.... Women are so horribly subjective and they have such scorn for the healthy commonplace. When a woman writes a story of adventure, a stout sea tale, a manly battle yarn, anything without wine, women, and love, then I will begin to hope for something great from them, not before.

  Willa Cather

  Women, Writing, Wine

  Willa Cather (1993). “Willa Cather”

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• ... we have broken down the self-respecting spirit of man with nursery tales and priestly threats, and we dare to assert, that inproportion as we have prostrated our understanding and degraded our nature, we have exhibited virtue, wisdom, and happiness, in our words, our actions, and our lives!

  Frances Wright

  Men, Self, Broken

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures as delivered by Frances Wright: with three addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789. Second edition”, p.115

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• I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called history is.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  History, Village, Shallow

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays: First and Second Series”, p.6, Library of America

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• In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Character, Space, Development

  Edgar Allan Poe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)”, p.2103, Delphi Classics

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• If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
  One cordial in this melancholy vale,
  'T is when a youthful, loving, modest pair
  In other's arms breathe out the tender tale

  Robert Burns

  Heaven, Arms, Pairs

  Robert Burns, Robert Chambers (1838). “The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. To which are Now Added, Notes Illustrating Historical, Personal, and Local Allusions. [The Editor's Preface Signed: R. C., I.e. Robert Chambers.]”, p.42

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• What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Truth, Mean, Reality

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• Realism: the wealth of detail guarantees the truth of the tale.

  Mason Cooley

  Reality, Details, Guarantees

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• Dead men hear no tales; posthumous fame is an Irish bull.

  Israel Zangwill

  Men, Bulls, Fame

  Israel Zangwill (1921). “Works of Israel Zangwill: Italian fantasies”

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• Today there are no fairy tales for us to believe in, and this is possibly a reason for the universal prevalence of mental crack-up. Yes, if we were childish in the past, I wish we could be children once again.

  Anita Loos

  Children, Believe, Past

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• How easy it is to tell tales!

  Denis Diderot

  Fiction, Easy

  "Jacques the Fatalist". Book by Denis Diderot, 1796.

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• The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.

  Ilka Chase

  Successful, Opportunity, Play

  Ilka Chase (1945). “Past Imperfect”, Pocket Books of Canada

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• Myth is a tale once believed as truth; believed, it is not myth, but religion. A tale once religiously believed that has come to be called a myth is something of religion corrupted with disbelief. What are beliefs for some societies but myths for others cannot fill spiritual vacancies in the life of those others.

  Laura Riding

  Spiritual, Religion, Vacancy

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• The right sort of gossip is a charming and stimulating thing. The Odyssey itself is simply glorious gossip, and the same may be said of nearly every tale of mingled fact and legend which has been handed down to us through the ages.

  J. E. Buckrose

  Gossip, Age, May

  Annie Edith Foster Jameson, J. E. Buckrose (1923). “What I Have Gathered”

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• Years ago, fairy tales all began with Once upon a time... now we know they all begin with, If I am elected.

  Carolyn Warner

  Women, Angel, Years

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• The time comes when our hearts sink utterly;
  When we remember Deirdre and her tale,
  And that her lips are dust.

  James Kenneth Stephen

  Heart, Dust, Sorrow

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• Content, it dreams awake, and spins the fabric of tales. There is really nothing to be done with such imagery except to use it: in writing, in art.

  Patricia A. McKillip

  Dream, Art, Writing

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