“So labour at your Alphabet,
For by that learning shall you get
To lands where Fairies may be met.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“Get away out of my country at once, and for ever, miserable creature, lest I take your life, and so rid myself of your malice.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“The advantage of possessing a great empire is not to be able to do the evil that one desires, but to do all the good that one possibly can.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“My dear Prince, might I beg you to move a little more that way, for your nose casts such a shadow that I really cannot see what I have on my plate”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“Go, my dear, and see how thy grandmamma does, for I hear she has been very ill; carry her a custard, and this little pot of butter.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“You see how self-love keeps us from knowing our own defects of mind and body. Our reason tries in vain to show them to us; we refuse to see them till we find them in the way of our interests.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“Our reason tries in vain to show them to us; we refuse to see them till we find them in the way of our interests." Prince”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“She believes that I love her!" cried the King. "What a fatal mistake! What is to be done to undeceive her?" "You know best," answered the Mermaid, smiling kindly at him. "When people are as much in love with one another as you two are, they don't need advice from anyone else.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“In the forest all is gay When my Princess walks that way. All the blossoms then are found Downward fluttering to the ground, Hoping she may tread on them. And bright flowers on slender stem Gaze up at her as she passes Brushing lightly through the grasses. Oh! my Princess, birds above Echo back our songs of love, As through this enchanted land Blithe we wander, hand in hand.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“They were very poor, and their seven children incommoded them greatly, because not one of them was able to earn his bread. That which gave them yet more uneasiness was that the youngest was of a very puny constitution, and scarce ever spoke a word, which made them take that for stupidity which was a sign of good sense. He was very little, and when born no bigger than one's thumb, which made him be called Little Thumb.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
“WHY THE SEA IS SALT Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were two brothers, the one rich and the other poor. When Christmas Eve came, the poor one had not a bite in the house, either of meat or bread; so he went to his brother, and begged him, in God's name, to give him something for Christmas Day. It was by no means the first time that the brother had been forced to give something to him, and he was not better pleased at being asked now than he generally was. "If you will do what I ask you, you shall have a whole ham," said he. The poor one immediately thanked him, and promised this. "Well, here is the ham, and now you must go straight to Dead Man's Hall," said the rich brother, throwing the ham to him. "Well, I will do what I have promised," said the other, and he took the ham and set off. He went on and on for the livelong day, and at nightfall he came to a place where there was a bright light. "I have no doubt this is the place," thought the man with the ham. An old man with a long white beard was standing in the outhouse, chopping Yule logs. "Good-evening," said the man with the ham. "Good-evening to you. Where are you going at this late hour?" said the man. "I am going to Dead Man's Hall, if only I am on the right track," answered the poor man. "Oh! yes, you are right enough, for it is here," said the old man. "When you get inside they will all want to buy your ham, for they don't get much meat to eat there; but you must not sell it unless you can get the hand-mill which stands behind the door for it. When you come out again I will teach you how to stop the hand-mill, which is useful for almost everything." So the man with the ham thanked the other for his good advice, and rapped at the door. When he got in, everything happened just as the old man had said it would: all the people, great and small, came round him like ants on an ant-hill, and each tried to outbid the other for the ham. "By rights my old woman and I ought to have it for our Christmas dinner, but, since you have set your hearts upon it, I must just give it up to you," said the man. "But, if I sell it, I will have the hand-mill which is standing there behind the door." At first they would not hear of this, and haggled and bargained with the man, but he stuck to what he had said, and the people were forced to give him the hand-mill. When the man came out again into the yard, he asked the old wood-cutter how he was to stop the hand-mill, and when he had learned that, he thanked him and set off home with all the speed he could, but did not get there until after the clock had struck twelve on Christmas Eve.”
― Andrew Lang, quote from The Blue Fairy Book
Andrew Lang
Born place: in Selkirk, The Borders, Scotland
Born date March 31, 1844
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“The men came to mind as mostly idle between nights of running wild or time in the pen, cooking moon and gathering around the spout, with ears chewed, fingers chopped, arms shot away, and no apologies grunted ever. The women came to mind bigger, closer, with their lonely eyes and homely yellow teeth, mouths clamped against smiles, working in the hot fields from can to can't, hands tattered rough as dry cobs, lips cracked all winter, a white dress for marrying, a black dress for burying, and Ree nodded yup. Yup.”
― Daniel Woodrell, quote from Winter's Bone
“I may not have been born captain of this boat, but I was born to rock it.”
― Tupelo Hassman, quote from Girlchild
“The splendor of the salmon canapés radiant with mayonnaise disappears, swallowed by the dark shopping bags of the customers. Certainly every one of these men and women knows exactly what he wants, heads straight for his objective with a decisiveness admitting no hesitancy; and rapidly he dismantles mountains of vol-au-vents, white puddings, cervelats.
Mr. Palomar would like to catch in their eyes some reflection of those treasures' spell, but the faces and actions are only impatient and hasty, of people concentrated on themselves, nerves taut, each concerned with what he has and what he does not have. Nobody seems to him worthy of the Pantagruelic glory that unfolds in those cases, on the counters. A greed without joy or youth drives them; and yet a deep, atavistic bond exists between them and those foods, their consubstance, flesh of their flesh.”
― Italo Calvino, quote from Mr Palomar
“Momma said that ghosts couldn't move over water. That's why Africans got trapped in the Americas.. They kept moving us over the water, stealing us away from our ghosts and ancestors, who cried salty rivers into the sand. That's where Momma was now, wailing at the water's edge, while her girls were pulled out of sight under white sails that cracked in the wind.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Chains
“Worry can pull a person’s face into a mask of anxious lines, and he could tell she’d had some of that, but even worried folks could laugh.”
― Ari Berk, quote from Death Watch
Forever
The Confusion
Resurrection
Rodrick Rules
Death with Interrupt...
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