Quotes on Tales

And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.

So we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies.

In spite of all the dishonour, the broken standards, the broken lives, The broken faith in one place or another, There was something left that was more than the tales Of old men on winter evenings.

And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, "The rest next time--" "It is next time!" The Happy voice cry. Thus grew the tale of Wonderland

So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.

If art is not to be life-enhancing, what is it to be? Half the world is feminine - why is there resentment at a female-oriented art? Nobody asks The Tale of Genji to be masculine! Women certainly learn a lot from books oriented toward a masculine world. Why is not the reverse also true? Or are men really so afraid of women's creativity?

A little bit of one story joins onto an idea from another, and hey presto, . . . not old tales but new ones. Nothing comes from nothing.

The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its own particular way.

The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the dragon who is wasting fairyland.

Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.

Before the real city could be seen it had to be imagined, the way rumours and tall tales were a kind of charting.

In his dream she was sick and he cared for her. The dream bore the look of sacrifice but he thought differently. He did not take care of her and she died alone somewhere in the dark and there is no other dream nor other waking world and there is no other tale to tell.

Why cover the same ground again? ... It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.

Hello, I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. By true I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies and in the end, isn't that the truth? The answer is no.