Perrault Quotes & Sayings

The poor child was the drudge of the household, and was always in the wrong. He was, however, the most bright and discreet of all the brothers; and if he spoke little, he heard and thought the more. — Charles Perrault

Charm is the true gift of the Fairies. — Charles Perrault

The less there is of eloquence, the more there is of love. — Charles Perrault

To wait so long/And want a man refined and strong/Is not at all uncommon. And yet to wait one hundred years/Without a tear, without a care/Makes for a very rare woman. So here our tale appears to show/How marriage deferred/Brings joy unheard/Nothing lost after a century or so. But others love with more ardor/And wed quickly out of passion/Whatever they do/I won't deplore/Nor shall I preach a lesson. — Charles Perrault

To get a perfect husband takes a wait That's just the way things are; and you shall find That virtuous patience is the only bait To land one handsome, wealthy, brave, and kind. And what a sweeter pause has ever been? To sleep a century of peaceful dreams, And then, to better dreams, awake again! Such wait is joy, however long it seems. A long delay brings even greater bliss; The greatest bliss must suffer long delays. The god of marriage oaths has promised this: The love that comes most slowly, longest stays. This moral's hard to hear, because it's true. To even utter it is hard to do. — Charles Perrault

Monsieur Puss came at last to a stately castle, the master of which was an Ogre, the richest ever known; for all the lands which the King had then passed through belonged to this castle. — Charles Perrault

After a hundred years the son of the King then reigning, who was of another family from that of the sleeping Princess, was a-hunting on that side of the country, and he asked what those towers were which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood. — Charles Perrault

The Prince, charmed with these words, and much more with the manner in which they were spoken, knew not how to show his joy and gratitude; he assured her that he loved her better than he did himself. — Charles Perrault

Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters. The elder was so much like her, both in looks and character, that whoever saw the daughter saw the mother. — Charles Perrault

For you know that I myself am a labyrinth, where one easily gets lost. — Charles Perrault

Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped down the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled for Dyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had gripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year. Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated the dogs and put them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into the country was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had arranged in two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man, and he was travelling light. — Jack London

You are a curse in my life! — Charles Perrault

A dream is a wish your heart makes. — Charles Perrault

The King's son, who was told that a great princess, whom nobody knew, was come, ran out to receive her. He gave her his hand as she alighted from the coach, and led her into the hall where the company were assembled. — Charles Perrault

The gentleman had also a young daughter, of rare goodness and sweetness of temper, which she took from her mother, who was the best creature in the world. — Charles Perrault

Her godmother, who was a fairy, said, You would like to go to the ball, is that not so? — Charles Perrault

Perrault took a hand. Between them they ran him about for the better part of an hour. They threw clubs at him. He dodged. They cursed him, and his fathers and mothers before him, and all his seed to come after him down to the remotest generation, and every hair on his body and drop of blood in his veins; and he answered curse with snarl and kept out of their reach. He did not try to run away, but retreated around and around the camp, advertising plainly that when his desire was met, he would come in and be good. — Jack London

He obliged Cinderella to sit down, and, putting the slipper to her little foot, he found it went on very easily, and fitted her as if it had been made of wax. — Charles Perrault

In France, the literary fairy tale was a genre initially established by a group of women (and a few men, including Perrault, who frequented their circles and salons). Lewis Seifert has estimated that more than two-thirds of the tales that appeared during the first wave of fairy-tale production in France (between 1690 and 1715) were written by women. For more than a century the tales of d'Aulnoy, Lheritier, La Force, Bernard, and other women dominated the field of fairy tales and were the touchstones of the genre. They were often long, intricate, digressive, playful, self-referential, and self-conscious - far from the blunt terseness that Benjamin and many others would associate with the form. — Elizabeth Wanning Harries

I love the fact that Perrault's princess goes on living and struggling after she finds her prince, and that Perrault doesn't shrink from the weirdness of Sleeping Beauty being over a hundred years old but having the body of a lithe young thing. When the prince wakes her, he considers telling her she's wearing the kind of clothes his grandmother used to wear, but decides it's best not to mention it just yet. — Samantha Ellis

The next day the two sisters went to the ball, and so did Cinderella, but dressed more magnificently than before. The King's son was always by her side, and his pretty speeches to her never ceased. — Charles Perrault

Really, Emmanuel,' said Julie, 'wouldn't you think that all these rich people, so happy only a short while ago, had built their fortunes, their happiness and their social position, while forgetting to allow for the wicked genie; and that this genie, like the wicked fairy in Perrault's stories1 who is not invited to some wedding or christening, had suddenly appeared to take revenge for that fatal omission? — Alexandre Dumas

FIRST MORAL
Good manners are not easy
They need a little care,
But when we least expect it
Bring rewards both rich and rare.
SECOND MORAL
Brute force or bribes of diamonds
Bend others to your will,
But gentle words have greater power
And gain more conquests still. — Charles Perrault

Her godmother simply touched her with her wand, and, at the same moment, her clothes were turned into cloth of gold and silver, all decked with jewels. — Charles Perrault

I wish with all my heart that you may be the most lovable prince in the world, and I bestow my gift on you as much as I am able. — Charles Perrault

Once upon a time there was a Queen who had a son so ugly and so misshapen that it was long disputed whether he had human form. A fairy who was at his birth said, however, that he would be very amiable for all that, since he would have uncommon good sense. — Charles Perrault

I loved [fairy stories] so, and my mother weighed down by grief had given up telling me them. At Nohant I found Mmes. d'Ardony's and Perrault's tales in old editions which became my chief joy for five or six years ... I've never read them since, but I could tell each tale straight through, and I don't think anything in all one's intellecutal life can be compared to these delights of imagination. — George Sand