Fairy Tales Retold Quotes & Sayings

The idea of love horrified me, and I knew I couldn't have it, so I didn't want it. — H.A. Lamb

There has always been something enigmatic about Cassie. This is one of the things I like in her, and I like it all the more for being, paradoxically, a quality that isn't readily apparent, elusiveness brought to so high a level it becomes almost invisible. She gives the impression of being startlingly, almost childishly open
which is true, as far as it goes: what you see is in fact what you get. But what you don't get, what you barely glimpse: this is the side of Cassie that fascinated me always. Even after all this time I knew there were rooms inside her that she had never let me guess at, let alone enter. There were questions she wouldn't answer, topics she would discuss only in the abstract; try to pin her down and she would skim away laughing, as nimbly as a figure skater. — Tana French

Some foolish people must have a tragedy, for they cannot believe in happy endings — Isobelle Carmody

Integrity: A name is the blueprint of the thing we call character. You ask, What's in a name? I answer, Just about everything you do. — Morris Mandel

Kami'd always retold her fairy tales to make the fair maidens braver and more self-sufficient, but she had never had any real objection to the handsome prince. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help -
this life after death? — Anne Sexton

Suddenly I'm all alone in the world. I see all this from the summit of a mental rooftop. I'm alone in the world. To see is to be distant. To see clearly is to halt. To analyze is to be foreign. No one who passes by touches me. Around me there is only air. I'm so isolated I can feel the distance between me and my suit. I'm a child in a nightshirt carrying a dimly lit candle and traversing a huge empty house. — Fernando Pessoa

Labour was always aligned with the U.S. during the Cold War, but the ignominious implosion of communism reinforced the belief that no alternative to the prevailing common sense was possible. — Martin Jacques

When Sleeping Beauty wakes up, the whole palace is upset. "You must go back to sleep," her mother tells her, "It's not time." From what she understands, the Prince hasn't come to rescue her yet. — Mads Sukalikar

In you, she saw hope.""You mean she saw his next meal. — Nicki Elson

We've got an airborne Sleeping Beauty — Seanan McGuire

You worked at night, when the shadows masked you and you were little more than a dream. You hid in the forest or the mountains, away from the steam engines and the lamps of the cities, the things that would expose you, confirming you and stripping you of your mystery. You showed yourself rarely, and only to the ones who needed to see you. After the free-for-all that was the earlier Chapters, when babies were stolen, young men murdered and maidens locked away, the fae had had to learn to be very careful about their involvement in the lives of the characters, lest they turn still further away from their beliefs. — F.D. Lee

Arian's ebony hair was spread in a shimmering fan around her shoulders, reminding Tristan absurdly of Snow White in her glass coffin. Even in death, hadn't the deceptive blush of life stained Snow White's pallid cheeks? Hadn't her rosebud lips parted as if to welcome a kiss from a prince who might never come? Hadn't the creamy swell of her breasts tantalized every hopelessly naive kid in the theater into daring to believe her chest would rise just one more time? — Teresa Medeiros

Fairy Tales give you more than just smile.
They give you Hope.
Hope that at the end true love conquers all odds and slays every dragon. — Ameya Agrawal

Life is like a huge lottery in which only the winning tickets are visible. — Jostein Gaarder

Do you really know the living Jesus - not from books but from being with Him in your heart? Have you heard the loving words He speaks to you? ... The devil may try to use the hurts of life, and sometimes our own mistakes - to make you feel it is impossible that Jesus really loves you, is really cleaving to you. This is a danger for all of us. And so sad, because it is completely the opposite of what Jesus is really wanting, waiting to tell you. Not only that He loves you, but even more - He longs for you. — Mother Teresa

Fifth grade was fourth grade with something wrong. Nothing changed outright. Instead it teetered. You'd pushed futility at Public School 38 so long by then you expected the building itself would be embarrassed and quit. The ones who couldn't read still couldn't, the teachers were teaching the same thing for the fifth tim now and refusing to meet your eyes, some kids had been left back twice and were the size of janitors. The place was a cage for growing, nothing else. School lunch turned out to be the five-year-plan, the going concern. You couldn't be left back from fish sticks and sloppy joes. You'd retain at the least two thousand half-pint containers of vitamin D-enriched chocolate milk.
Two black guys from the projects, twins, were actually named Ronald and Donald MacDonald. The twins themselves only shrugged, couldn't be made to agree it was incredible. — Jonathan Lethem

My interpreter Sayuri is folding a piece of notebook paper. She is at step 21, where the crane's body is inflated. The directions show a tiny puff besides an arrow pointing at the bird. It makes sense if you already know what to do. Otherwise, it's wonderfully surreal: Put a cloud inside a bird. — Mary Roach

He wasn't having me try on a glass slipper, but for some strange reason, I finally understood exactly why Cinderella ran off with the prince after having only known him for one night. Having a hot guy kneeling in front of you is sort of intoxicating. — Sariah Wilson

Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade. — Philip James Bailey

A son," the Queen said, and her smile lit up the room. "Will I give birth soon?"
The old woman nodded.
"When?"
The old woman reached out and rested her hand on top of the basket, watched the Queen's eyes darken. "When he's more beautiful than you. — Wheeler Scott

I practice a lot. I practice in the winter when it's cold in Connecticut - a lot. I practice in my bedroom on the carpet - a lot. For all the practice I do, I should be a better golfer than I am. — Stuart Scott

Justice requires that everyone should have enough to eat. But it also requires that everyone should contribute to the production of food. — Elias Canetti

Both gentleness and meekness are born of power, not weakness. There is a pseudo-gentlene ss that is effeminate, and there is a pseudo-meekness that is cowardly. But a Christian is to be gentle and meek because those are Godlike virtues ... We should never be afraid, therefore, that the gentleness of the Spirit means weakness of character. It takes strength, God's strength, to be truly gentle. — Jerry Bridges

A kiss implied an introduction, a kind of conversation unwinding between two people. Usually two people who could actually stand each other's company. This was like being thrown into the middle of the ocean when you'd never even set foot into a creek before.
He spun me around, pressing me against the stone wall as if even gravity was too much of an interruption, as if he couldn't spare a single scrap of energy for standing, not when he could be kissing me. — Alyxandra Harvey

Son of a Merryweather, he's a lot stronger than he looks. — Nicki Elson

A man in his early prime contemplates on life, shattered by the distortions of society he gazes ahead in time. There were vows of happiness and fairy tale beginnings. Now there is nothing of that sort; now there is nothing that started the tales so bright. It's after all this while that he understands why fairy tales begin with 'once upon a time'... — Adhish Mazumder

Since our yesterdays are gone and our tomorrows are never promised, TODAY I want to thank all my amazing friends and family for being in my life. — Steven Aitchison

I'm glad she's so smitten with her new huntsman boyfriend and all, but venison-wurst? Gag me with a harpsichord. — Nicki Elson

Your brain may give birth to any technology, but other brains will decide whether the technology thrives. The number of possible technologies is infinite, and only a few pass this test of affinity with human nature. — Robert Wright

Been waitin' years for this, baby. Thanks for makin' it worth the wait."
"You're still bein' awesome," I informed him.
"Yeah, and it's cute as fuck that annoys you. — Kristen Ashley

Keep your sword close and your friends closer. — Kiley Kellermeyer

I'd learned I didn't need kindling - I was kindling. ("Red") — Alyxandra Harvey