Quotes & Sayings About Fantasy Creatures

I came to the sobering realization that I was not making it out of here alive, no matter what. I was bruised and bloodied in mind and body, surrounded by the most literal interpretation of monsters, and a final nail in the coffin
I was in love with one of them. The love and loss alone would kill me, if not for the mythical creatures standing in front of me, ready to beat love and loss to the punch.
Camille — Rachael Wade

It had been a long, dull day at Jackson without Hurrican Lena, and I was starting to wonder how I ever got through eight periods without all the trouble she caused me. Without all the trouble she made me want to cause myself. — Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Mortals were such fickle creatures. They called into the dark, demanded answers and attention from forces they could not comprehend, and yet when they had that attention and those answers, they complained about them. — Philippa Ballantine

It's time to be the person you were meant to be, Cat. You don't just have to make decisions and stand by them now. You have to live with them. — Amanda Bouchet

What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like to denude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light? — Mikhail Bulgakov

The greatest happiness is a quiet kind. It's the tender understanding that we're living in a very strange place full of strange creatures. And there's quite a bit of wonder in that. — F.K. Preston

He's barely finished himself inside me when my release hits. My thighs tense. The breath stalls in my lungs, and then I kick back my head and let out the loudest, throatiest, and most breathless moan in the history of all history, going boneless in a blissful rush.
"Gods, I missed you," Griffin rasps, holding me as I throb around him.
The high-impact tremors fade into sweet, lingering aftershocks. I look up at him with heavy-lidded eyes. My lips part, but no words come out. Even the drag of frosty air over my kiss-swollen lips is almost too sensual to bear.
Griffin quirks a dark eyebrow, looking smug. "That was easy."
I grin, falling in love with him all over again. "Then do it again. — Amanda Bouchet

The word 'fairy' conjures up images of cute little creatures, so I don't use it. I use 'metahominids' from the Greek for 'other' and 'men.' They aren't cute - this is no fairy story. — F.R. Maher

I had a book that was given to me as a kid that was called 'Faeries.' It was this dark, sinister book with pictures that used to scare me because they were these creepy little creatures. But, I was always really drawn to that fantasy world, more than a sci-fi world, in terms of outer space stuff. — Anna Silk

. . . I could't get lost in the story, not the way you need to be, to become somebody else. — Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the Other Lands. Where does the wind come from that blows upon your face, that fans the pages of your book? Where the harum-scarum magic of small wild creatures meets the magic of Man, where the language of the wind and the rain and the trees can be understood, there we will find the Raven King. — Susanna Clarke

Haylee thought of all the supernatural creatures that could kill her ... a vampire or even a vampire slayer, and became angry at the idea a fairy might end her life tonight. — Natasha Larry

I do a lot of urban fantasy, which is modern-day cities, but you've got magic, you've got fairies running around, or cryptozoological creatures running around, and I'm pulling very heavily on my background as a folklore major and having done some animation work and all of that, and I'm pulling from the modern fairy tale narrative. — Seanan McGuire

By itself, just to draw crazy creatures has limited appeal - if I had to give up one thing, it would be the wild imagination. When the work becomes too detached from ordinary life, it starts to fall apart. Fantasy needs to have some connection with reality, or it becomes of its own interest only, insular. — Shaun Tan

Sometimes we need to step away from our current reality in order to truly appreciate it. — L.E. Horn

Beauty is something most beings, human or otherwise, gauge by the outward appearance. However once you see inside of one's heart, the true beauty of a person comes through and many times changes the initial perception. I have seen the most beautiful creatures seem horribly hideous, ugly, in light of their dark hearts. (Acronis) — Madison Thorne Grey

Before the day there was only endless night. When the stars rained down from the skies, and giants and other unfathomable creatures roamed the land, there was a goddess who ruled over them all because she had been clever enough to figure out the secret of time and how to walk between worlds. — Scarlett Amaris

Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Parmida had never believed in unicorns, not until a stroll through the forests of Sunneth Dol convinced her otherwise. She was a young human woman living in a world where magick was dead and magickal creatures a myth. Elves and fae and magickal beasts had long ago shed their skin and left their bones. It was a world where humans alone now existed, walking in the dark of night, always looking over their shoulder for their inevitable extinction, as if nature were waiting to absorb them next back into her soil. — Ash Gray

It had been her mercy, her refusal to kill a known enemy, that had made me realize the Order was wrong. It was because of her that I was here now, risking my life to protect the creatures I'd once driven toward extinction. Because a dragon had spared the life of a soldier of St. George, everything had changed. — Julie Kagawa

We humans are the only creatures on the planet capable of articulating worlds which are contrary, even in the most minor way, to reality. Every story, I think, begins there. With a dream. A fantasy. — L.M. Halloran

Kate grasped her small handbag and pulled a small blue vial and threw it into the grinding mass. It shattered harmlessly, causing two creatures to pause with a look of confusion.
"What is that potion?" Simon asked.
Kate stared as the two undead things began to shuffle forward again. She glanced into her purse. "Damn it! That was my perfume. — Clay Griffith

In a near-by clearing, Cricket and How-Ya-Do came upon a ridiculously comical sight.
It was an extra-large hyper-manic bird yelling at the funniest looking Crawfish that she had ever seen. The Crawfish stood over a foot tall, which just does not happen, and he was wearing a light-blue beanie and gold chains around his neck. — Darwun St. James

Even if they are fictional, I always thought that mermaids were beautiful creatures. Of course, they don't compare to you, but still ... — Daniele Lanzarotta

Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking. — Michael Moorcock

Evan's gaze fell on the massive form in the middle of the courtyard. He jabbered incoherently, pointing at the huge monster, sure it was another demon.
Arnvar hastily informed him to, "Sssh and stop pointing. He's just an orc."
Just an Orc! — Will Collins

Time has no meaning in the wyldwood. Day and night don't really exist here, just light and darkness, and they can be as fickle and moody as everything else. A "night" can pass in the space of a blink, or go on forever. Light and darkness will chase each other through the sky, play hide-and-seek or tag or catch-me-if-you-can. Sometimes, one or the other will become offended ... and refuse to come out for an indefinite amount of time. Once, light became so angry, a hundred years passed in the mortal realm before it deigned to come out again. And though the sun continued to rise and set in the human world, it was a rather turbulent period for the world of men, as all the creatures who lurked in darkness and shadow got to roam freely under the lightless Nevernever skies. — Julie Kagawa

Just because you do not know how they look like, doesn't mean you cannot see them. — A.D.Y. Howle

We who work in fantasy today take the threads from all the story tellers of the past. From the ancient, many colored threads we work to weave a new cloth. If the landscape, the characters, and the creatures here call up the old tales told the beside the fire, when stories went from mouth to ear instead of page to eye then I have woven well and the dreamer continues to dream. — Janet Lee Carey

The Singularity is at once an escape and a birth fantasy. I said to him: A Zeus dream that avoids the organic body altogether. Brand-new creatures burst forth from men's heads. Presto! The mother and her evil vagina disappears. — Siri Hustvedt

We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy. Our current picture of freedom encourages a dream-like facility; whereas what we require is a renewed sense of the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons. We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being; it is through an enriching and deepening of concepts that moral progress takes place. Simone Weil said that morality was a matter of attention not of will. We need a new vocabulary of attention. — Iris Murdoch

How does evil arise? Where does it come from? We think of malevolent men- - murderers, rapists, tyrants - and somehow believe they are different creatures from us. They are not. All evil men were once innocent babes, once lovable children. Men make choices, some consistently bad. But those who choose the worst kinds of evil were typically guided into it. — Daniel Ionson

It is said, once a wise man from the far North told me; it is said that there are in certain parts of Scandinavia cities within cities like there are circles within circles; existent yet invisible. And those cities are inhabited by creatures more terrible than imagination can create : man-shaped but man-devouring, as black and as silent as the night they prowl in. — Johanna Sinisalo

Charlie said, his voice rising an octave in desperation. "I know it's ridiculous, but I keep trying to rationalise everything and it's driving me crazy. Did you spot that flying horse earlier? I found myself trying to explain it with Darwin's Theory of Evolution. — Victor Kloss

Colm was a good sleeper. But if there was one sound at night that should wake him, and any sensible man who loved his family, it was the barking of dogs.
The noise was coming from the village. It was not just one or two dogs, but surely every mangy cur and mongrel that lived there. Something was abroad, and in this time of the dying of the year, when fell creatures roamed the countryside as hunger began to bite, it was not likely to be anything good. — Duncan Harper

Basically, Urban Fantasy means D&D in New York. Ordinary people have no idea that they share the world with fantastic, supernatural creatures. It can't just be vampires or werewolves; it has to be a whole continuum of fantastic beings, with their own society within society. — Ted Naifeh

I was convinced that the Natural History Museum was missing only one thing: a unicorn. Well, a unicorn and a dragon. Also it was missing werewolves. (Why was there nothing about werewolves in the Natural History Museum? I wanted to know about werewolves.) There were vampire bats, but none of the better-dressed vampires on display , and no mermaids at all, not one - I looked - and as for griffins or manticores, they were completely out. — Neil Gaiman

Their characteristics are well-known. They're beautiful
when they're not astoundingly ugly. They're both goddesses for men to worship, and demons for them to flee. They adore children, sometimes to the point of unhealthy obsession. They have a strong association with nature, from which they're often assumed to draw magical power. Their anger is a terrible thing to behold, and all the more fearsome because anything can spark it; the rules by which these creatures operate are not those of rational men. They are creatures of fanciful whim, and they never, ever, can be understood.
I'm talking, of course, about women. — Marie Brennan

While his body was left behind, his soul soared into the heavens. He did not pause at Celestia's gates. No, that was not the true Celestial realm. Even as it floated among the skies and hosted its angelic ward, it was nothing more than a city. The place the Hallowed sought was beyond such petty creatures. He did not give it another passing glance as he ascended. — A.J. Flowers

Unicorns, dragons, witches may be creatures conjured up in dreams, but on the page their needs, joys, anguishes, and redemptions should be just as true as those of Madame Bovary or Martin Chuzzlewit. — Alberto Manguel

You know how it is
you get older, you get wiser, you start to ask yourself 'is it any use being able to summon creatures of the nether deeps when I could be watching BBC 4? — Kate Griffin

At the time of Woodstock, I was just 13, but I used to see these exotic hippy creatures and I did look on with envy. How could you not? In an ideal world, I would have loved to have been a hippy - but I might have been a bit strait-laced. It was my fantasy. — Imelda Staunton

The minute that you bring a unicorn into a story, you know that it's a fairy tale or a fable, because unicorns don't exist as animals. They exist as fantasy creatures. — Gloria Vanderbilt

I never thought my life would end like this. Being hunted by mythological creatures in my pajamas. Honestly, it never entered my mind. — Amanda Carlson

While the whole 'God Butcher Saga' had elements of fantasy, sci-fi and horror all mixed together, 'The Accursed' is very much high-fantasy. Right out of the gate, we've got elves, talk of fantastic worlds, strange creatures, Malekith riding a flying tiger, as well as more dwarves, giants, trolls and elves than you can possibly count. — Jason Aaron

Men-kind shared this world for but a blink, then, sadly, they became enlightened, found science and religion. The new world of men left little room for magic or the magical creatures of old. Earth's first children were driven into the shadows by flame and cold iron, by man's insatiable need of conquest. — Brom

From the beginning, I did not intend to create a typical classic fantasy. I wanted an organic, harmonious world where my story could evolve. If this world needed gnomes, I put them in there. As for drevalyankas, pikshas, bolugs and other totally original creatures, they appeared there somehow by themselves in the course of events, and then just began "to get under the feet of the main heroes" ... — Irina Lopatina

The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. — Robert A. Heinlein

An admirable line of Pablo Neruda's, "My creatures are born of a long denial," seems to me the best definition of writing as a kind of exorcism, casting off invading creatures by projecting them into universal existence, keeping them on the other side of the bridge ... It may be exaggerating to say that all completely successful short stories, especially fantastic stories, are products of neurosis, nightmares or hallucination neutralized through objectification and translated to a medium outside the neurotic terrain. This polarization can be found in any memorable short story, as if the author, wanting to rid himself of his creature as soon and as absolutely as possible, exorcises it the only way he can: by writing it. — Julio Cortazar

We fight monsters and unholy creatures for a living here. Grotesque, evil, violent, dangerous; they're certainly all these things. And yet, we somehow manage to go to sleep each night and wake up each morning. The terror wears off. What was horrific becomes mundane. We lose ourselves to a numbed normalcy after a while, a self-inflicted detachment. You forget how you got here, what it was like before. And then someone comes along, someone new, someone who sees it all with fresh eyes, and it snaps you out of your daily coma, reminding you of what you've forgotten. Of what you've become. — Bill Blais

I know everything, you see,' the old voice wheedled. 'The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past and the present, like other low creatures: no higher faculties than memory and perception. But dragons, my boy, have a whole different kind of mind.' He stretched his mouth in a kind of smile, no trace of pleasure in it. 'We are from the mountaintop: all time, all space. We see in one instant the passionate vision and the blowout. — John Gardner

Was he a real goblin? A minute ago Ben would have scoffed at the prospect, but then came the dragon. — Victor Kloss

I realize that, to many readers, Hard Fantasy may seem to be a contradiction in terms. Fantasy, according to most generally recognized definitions, differs from both 'real world' fiction and 'science fiction' in that magic or magical creatures are active elements. — Jane Lindskold

Trolls have existed on this planet for as long as humans. This is what I was told and what I translated to Tub. The first mention of them in recorded history is from ninth-century Norway, when the nefarious creatures began showing up in song, verse, and bedtime stories to keep misbehaving children in line. According to Norse folklore, trolls are one of the Dark Beings, the purest embodiments of evil, and they scurried from between the toes of Ymir, the mythic six-headed Frost Giant whose murdered body became the universe in which we live; his bones became the mountains, his teeth boulders, and so forth. — Guillermo Del Toro

I will never let you go, and I will never leave you. I would defy creatures, and Gods, and terrible, brutal queens to keep you safe and by my side. I would move Mount Olympus itself to hold you in my arms and feel your heart beat against mine. You are my soul, and yes, I will fight for you and protect you until my dying breath. — Amanda Bouchet

Down every hall is a gruesome tangle of impossible creatures, and every one of them is split open or strung with barbs or dragging their insides after them, flailing along on shattered limbs or shredded wings or blasted stumps.
I've got the pistol, half a can of spray and a handful of useless shotgun slugs.
I'm dead. — Bill Blais