Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale of all.
Hans Christian Andersen

Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.
Eugene O'Neill

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale.
Author Unknown

Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You dwell in your own enchantment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love.
Ben Okri

If you see the magic in a fairy tale, you can face the future.
Danielle Steel

This was Venice, the flattering and suspect beauty - this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism.
Thomas Mann

Don't ask questions of fairy tales.
Jewish Folk Saying

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.
Marie Curie

Child of the pure, unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love-gift of a fairy tale.
Lewis Carroll

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
C.S. Lewis

When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl.
James M. Barrie
Peter Pan.

Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.
Hans Christian Andersen

Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
G.K. Chesterton

Knowledge is not a series of self consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth.
Paul Feyerabend

These are characters in a fairy tale for grown-ups. Wouldn't it be lovely? Yes.
Diana Arbus

Yes, hell exists. It is not a fairy tale. One indeed burns there. This hell is not at the end of life. It is here. At the beginning. Hell is what the infant must experience before he gets to us.
Dr. Frederick Leboyer

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his reflective processes, and incomprehensibly to himself, all his progress should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition. Alas, the artist who waits in ambush there, watching, detaining them, will find them transformed like the beautiful gold in the fairy tale which cannot remain gold because some small detail was not taken care of.
Rainer Maria Rilke

When the witch wanted to come in, she stood down below and called out:
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair for me."
Rapunzel had beautiful long hair, as fine as spun gold. When she heard the witch's voice, she undid her braids and fastened them to the window latch. They fell to the ground twenty ells down, and the witch climbed up on them.
The Brothers Grimm
Rapunzel.

When they came closer, they saw that the house was made of bread, and the roof was made of cake and the windows of sparkling sugar.
The Brothers Grimm
Hansel and Gretel.

"Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!"
"The better to hear you with".
"Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have!"
"The better to see you with".
"Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have!"
"The better to grab you with".
"But, grandmother, what a dreadful big mouth you have!"
"The better to eat you with".
The Brothers Grimm
Little Red Riding Hood.

The first [dwarf] said: "Who has been sitting in my chair?"
The second: "Who has been eating off my plate?"
The third: "Who has taken a bite of my bread?"
The fourth: "Who has been eating some of my vegetables?"
The fifth: "Who has been using my fork?"
The sixth: "Who has been cutting with my knife?"
And the seventh: "Who has been drinking out of my cup?"
Then the first looked around, saw a little hollow in his bed and said: "Who has been lying in my bed?"
The others came running, and cried out: "Somebody has been lying in my bed too".
But when the seventh looked at his bed, he saw Snow White lying there asleep.
The Brothers Grimm
Snow White.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in this land is the fairest of all?"
The mirror answered-
"You, O Queen, are fairest of all."
The Brothers Grimm
Snow White.

Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.
Hans Christian Andersen
The Little Mermaid.

"But he has nothing on at all," said a little child at last. "Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child," said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. "But he has nothing on at all," cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, "Now I must bear up to the end." And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the train which did not exist.
Hans Christian Andersen
The Emperor's New Clothes.

Death continued to stare at the emperor with his cold, hollow eyes, and the room was fearfully still. Suddenly there came through the open window the sound of sweet music. Outside, on the bough of a tree, sat the living nightingale. She had heard of the emperor's illness, and was therefore come to sing to him of hope and trust. And as she sung, the shadows grew paler and paler; the blood in the emperor's veins flowed more rapidly, and gave life to his weak limbs; and even Death himself listened, and said, "Go on, little nightingale, go on."
Hans Christian Andersen
The Nightingale.

His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.
Hans Christian Andersen
The Ugly Duckling.

She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
Hans Christian Andersen
The Little Match Girl.

Every time a good child dies, an angel of God comes down to earth. He takes the child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with it all over the places the child loved on earth. The angel plucks a large handful of flowers, and they carry it with them up to God, where the flowers bloom more brightly than they ever did on earth.
Hans Christian Andersen
The Angel.

He felt himself melting away, but he still remained firm with his gun on his shoulder. Suddenly the door of the room flew open and the draught of air caught up the little dancer, she fluttered like a sylph right into the stove by the side of the tin soldier, and was instantly in flames and was gone. The tin soldier melted down into a lump, and the next morning, when the maid servant took the ashes out of the stove, she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the little dancer nothing remained but the tinsel rose, which was burnt black as a cinder.
Hans Christian Andersen
The Steadfast Tin Soldier.

When he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers. This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower.
Hans Christian Andersen
Thumbelina.

She said to her, "Grandmother, what great arms you have!"
"That's to embrace you the better, my child."
"Grandmother, what great legs you have!"
"That's to run the better, my child."
"Grandmother, what great ears you have!"
"That's to hear the better, my child."
"Grandmother, what great teeth you have!"
"That's for to eat you."
And upon saying these words, this naughty Wolf threw himself upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her.
Charles Perrault
Little Red Riding Hood.

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
Cinderalla.

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 Perrrault
Sleeping Beauty.

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.
Albert Einstein
Attributed, but unsourced.

"Yes, yes," said the Beast, "my heart is good, but still I am a monster."
"Among mankind," says Beauty, "there are many that deserve that name more than you, and I prefer you, just as you are, to those, who, under a human form, hide a treacherous, corrupt, and ungrateful heart."
Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont
Beauty and the Beast.

Knowledge is not a series of self consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view; it is rather an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable) alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth.
Peter Feyerabend

You can understand and relate to most people better if you look at them -- no matter how old or impressive they may be -- as if they are children. For most of us never really grow up or mature all that much -- we simply grow taller. O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
Leo Rosten

Years ago, fairy tales all began with Once upon a time... now we know they all begin with, If I am elected.
Carolyn Warner

I want to talk about political and economic fairy tales.
Ronald Reagan

A woman is a female who is human,
Designed for pleasing man, the human male.
A human male is pleased by many women,
And all the rest you hear is fairy tale.
Oscar Hammerstein II

Chicago is partly a fairy tale because it's inside one person's head, so that part of it's made up and the rest of it is reality.
Colleen Atwood

A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.
Marie Curie

In kindergarten that used to be my job, to tell them fairytales. I liked Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm fairy tales, all the classic fairy tales.
Francis Ford Coppola

My father leaving the family shaped who I was and how I looked at the world. By the same token, my father telling me fairy tales that he had made up shaped me profoundly, too.
Kate DiCamillo

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
Alexandre Dumas