58 Fairy Tale Quotes

Fairy tales have a magical way of capturing our hearts and sparking our imaginations. Whether it's the timeless wisdom of classic stories or the enchanting twists of modern retellings, these narratives offer profound insights and transport us to fantastical realms. In this post, we've curated a collection of the top 58 fairy tale quotes that encapsulate the wonder, wisdom, and whimsy of these beloved tales. Dive in and let these memorable lines awaken the storyteller within you and remind you of the magic that lies in every story.

1. “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

2. “When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.” - Albert Einstein

3. “Fairy tales are experienced by their hearers and readers, not as realistic, but as symbolic poetry.” - Max Luthi

4. “The fairy tale is not the conclusion, but the doorway to a more brilliant reality. Pushed onto a pedestal as the final answer their worth is misshapen and distorted. The world’s story may end with a couple living happily ever after but our life in Christ enables the intimacy of the human relationship to illuminate an eternal perfection. In a balanced perspective, neither denigrated nor exalted from their intended place, fairy tales are a lovely and exhilarating part of life.” - Natalie Nyquist

5. “There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.” - Neil Gaiman

6. “When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet Prince Charming and he's everything you ever wanted. In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is. Then you grow up and you realize that Prince Charming is not as easy to find as you thought. You realize the bad guy is not wearing a black cape and he's not easy to spot; he's really funny, and he makes you laugh, and he has perfect hair.” - Taylor Swift

7. “Can you not see," I said, "that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is—what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is—what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.” - G.K. Chesterton

8. “We may say that the characters in fairytales are ‘good to think with’…[and that] the job of the fairytale is to show that Why? questions cannot be answered except in one way: by telling the stories. The story does not contain the answer, it is the answer.” - Brian Wicker

9. “I really feel that we're not giving children enough credit for distinguishing what's right and what's wrong. I, for one, devoured fairy tales as a little girl. I certainly didn't believe that kissing frogs would lead me to a prince, or that eating a mysterious apple would poison me, or that with the magical "Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo" I would get a beautiful dress and a pumpkin carriage. I also don't believe that looking in a mirror and saying "Candyman, Candyman, Candyman" will make some awful serial killer come after me. I believe that many children recognize Harry Potter for what it is, fantasy literature. I'm sure there will always be some that take it too far, but that's the case with everything. I believe it's much better to engage in dialog with children to explain the difference between fantasy and reality. Then they are better equipped to deal with people who might have taken it too far.” - J.K. Rowling

10. “One of my heroes, G.K. Chesterton, said, "The old fairy tales endure forever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal." Discovering that the modern world can still contain the wonder and strangeness of a fairy tale is part of what my novels are about.” - Regina Doman

11. “Think of every fairy-tale villainess you've ever heard of. Think of the wicked witches, the evil queens, the mad enchantresses. Think of the alluring sirens, the hungry ogresses, the savage she-beasts. Think of them and remember that somewhere, sometime, they've all been real.Mab gave them lessons.” - Jim Butcher

12. “Mother didn't understand that children aren't frightened by stories; that their lives are full of far more frightening things than those contained in fairy tales.” - Kate Morton

13. “Das pädagogische Bedenken: „Darf man Kinder mit dem Hokuspokus afrikanischer Zauberer und böser Feen unterhalten?“ kommt ungefähr der Frage gleich, ob man den Eskimos ihre Amulette und Zauberpriester weiterhin gestatten soll.Literarisch ließe sich gegen Märchen wie „La Belle au Bois Dormant“, „Le Petit Cahperon Rouge“, „Le Chat Botté“, „Riquet à la Houppé» eigentlich nichts einwenden; waren sie doch von einem Charles Perrault (de l’Academie Francaise) und seiner Geliebten, einer Comtesse d’Aulnay […] in die Aristokratensalons des Louis Quatorze eingeführt worden und hatten sich so manierlich, so chevaleresk aufgeführt, dass sie überall als geistige Sprösslinge ihrer durchaus hoffähigen Editoren empfunden wurden.Ihr plebejischer, ja asiatischer, ja negroider Ursprung wurde erst im XIX. Jahrhundert aufgedeckt, als in Deutschland und Rußland Sprachforscher ihren Stammbäumen nachgingen: als die Rechtsgelehrten Brüder Grimm ihre Erzählungen unverblümt dem Volksmund nachschrieben, um sie „in letzter Minute für die armen und einfachen Leute zu retten, denen man sie vorenthielt…“Aber was da zum Vorschein kam, wuchs den Philologen über den Kopf, wie das so oft im Eifer der Wissenschaften vorkommt. Bei ihrem Vorhaben, im reinsten Interesse der Germanistik heimische Sagenschätze schlichter Bauern und ehrbarer Ammen freizulegen, waren sie auf Aushöhlungen gestoßen, aus denen ihnen geile Succuben entgegenflatterten, giftiges Schlangen- und Basiliskengezücht entgegenkroch, der Blutgeruch shakesperarischer Hexenkessel in die Nase stieg.Auch hatten sie damit, ohne es zu wollen, einer überall gärenden permanenten Verschwörung Vorschub geleistet – nämlich einer der Kinder aller Rassen, aller Zeitläufte, die heimtückisch, mit dem Revanchegelüst zu kurz gekommener Zwerge das abstruse Riesenreich der Erwachsenen unterwühlen.” - Walter Mehring

14. “You are the fairy tale told by your ancestors.” - Toba Beta

15. “Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.” - Oscar Wilde

16. “The tales of Elfland do not stand or fall on their actuality but on their truthfulness, their speaking to the human condition, the longings we all have for the Faerie Other.” - Jane Yolen

17. “This was like being in one of those National Geographic magazines. We were among the natives now.” - Brandi Salazar

18. “The fairy tale, which to this day is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind, secretly lives on in the story. The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales. Whenever good counsel was at a premium, the fairy tale had it, and where the need was greatest, its aid was nearest. This need was created by myth. The fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest.” - Walter Benjamin

19. “The middle son gets a magic donkey. When you shout the word: "Bricklebrit!", it spews gold pieces out of...And I quote:... its front and back.Yes, folks. Thing I Love #4: the Bricklebrit Donkey. You shout a word, and gold comes flying out its butt. Fairy tales don't get much better than that.” - Sarah Beth Durst

20. “My name is Arianna Morganna Brittany DuLac--you can imagine why I went by the name Ryan.” - Priya Ardis

21. “He’s so powerful. Who knows maybe he’s advanced past eating” - Priya Ardis

22. “at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power.” - Susan Wiggs

23. “Why did you wear heels? How are you supposed to fight a gargoyle in what you're wearing?” - Priya Ardis

24. “This is the list you carry in your pocket, of the things you plan to say to Kay, when you find him, if you find him:1. I’m sorry that I forgot to water your ferns while you were away that time.2. When you said that I reminded you of your mother, was that a good thing?3. I never really liked your friends all that much.4. None of my friends ever really liked you.5. Do you remember when the cat ran away, and I cried and cried and made you put up posters, and she never came back? I wasn’t crying because she didn’t come back. I was crying because I’d taken her to the woods, and I was scared she’d come back and tell you what I’d done, but I guess a wolf got her, or something. She never liked me anyway.6. I never liked your mother.7. After you left, I didn’t water your plants on purpose. They’re all dead.8. Goodbye.9. Were you ever really in love with me?10. Was I good in bed, or just average?11. What exactly did you mean, when you said that it was fine that I had put on a little weight, that you thought I was even more beautiful, that I should go ahead and eat as much as I wanted, but when I weighed myself on the bathroom scale, I was exactly the same weight as before, I hadn’t gained a single pound?12. So all those times, I’m being honest here, every single time, and anyway I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I faked every orgasm you ever thought I had. Women can do that, you know. You never made me come, not even once.13. So maybe I’m an idiot, but I used to be in love with you.14. I slept with some guy, I didn’t mean to, it just kind of happened. Is that how it was with you? Not that I’m making any apologies, or that I’d accept yours, I just want to know.15. My feet hurt, and it’s all your fault.16. I mean it this time, goodbye.” - Kelly Link

25. “Once upon a time fairy tales were told to audiences of young and old alike. It is only in the last century that such tales were deemed fit only for small children, stripped of much of their original complexity, sensuality, and power to frighten and delight.” - Terri Windling

26. “I haven't finished revisiting Sleeping Beauty. As a faerie tale, that one is rife with inherent difficulties. After all, the world doesn't stop just because one person is asleep.” - Anna Sheehan

27. “The store of fairy tales, that blue chamber where stories lie waiting to be rediscovered, holds out the promise of just those creative enchantments, not only for its own characters caught in its own plotlines; it offers magical metamorphoses to the one who opens the door, who passes on what was found there, and to those who hear what the storyteller brings. The faculty of wonder, like curiosity can make things happen; it is time for wishful thinking to have its due.” - Marina Warner

28. “I believe that our lives, just like fairy tales - the stories that have been written by us humans, through our own experiences of living - will always have a Hero and a Heroine, a Fairy Godmother and a Wicked Witch.” - Lucinda Riley

29. “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

30. “I wish for my child to have a mind as stark and wild as the winter, a spirit as clear and fine as my window, and a heart as red and open as my wounded hand.” - Catherynne M. Valente

31. “the association of children and fairy-stories is an accident of our domestic history. Fairy-stories have in the modern lettered world been relegated to the “nursery,” as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the play-room, primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

32. “He’d used the amulet to read my thoughts again. I pictured smacking him in the face.” - Priya Ardis

33. “If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.” - Mo Willems

34. “There once was a woman named Story Easton who couldn't decide if she should kill herself, or eat a double cheeseburger.” - Elizabeth Leiknes

35. “He rarely saw a doorway without advancing through it as if he owned it. Since he owned a good many doorways, he would have pointed out that this was a reasonable assumption.” - Eloisa James

36. “Inevitably they find their way into the forest. It is there that they lose and find themselves. It is there that they gain a sense of what is to be done. The forest is always large, immense, great and mysterious. No one ever gains power over the forest, but the forest posses the power to change lives and alter destinies.” - Jack Zipes

37. “It doesn't matter if you're born in a duck yard, so long as you are hatched from a swan's egg!” - Hans Christian Andersen

38. “Nowhere hidden has ever turned away a goodheart guest.” - Mikl Paul

39. “Why should I laugh?' asked the old man. 'Madness in youth is true wisdom. Go, young man, follow your dream, and if you do not find the happiness that you seek, at any rate you will have had the happiness of seeking it.” - Andrew Lang

40. “It is so delightful to teach those one loves!” - Andrew Lang

41. “...she has been bewitched by a wicked sorceress, and will not regain her beauty until she is my wife.''Does she say so? Well if you believe that you may drink cold water and think it bacon'.” - Andrew Lang

42. “The world is a fairy tale; we are its guardians.” - Dejan Stojanovic

43. “Two forces create eternity – a fairy tale and a dream from the fairy tale.” - Dejan Stojanovic

44. “...Myths aren’t fairy tales or legends—they’re an honest attempt to explain mysteries...” - John Geddes

45. “In stories like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, they always say the heroine is 'as good as she is beautiful.' I wondered if people just wanted that to be true, wanted the beautiful to be good. I wondered if they wanted the ugly to be bad because then they wouldn't have to feel bad for them.” - Alex Flinn

46. “But as she continued and finished her tale, I could tell that her heart was elsewhere, and when she excused herself to go to bed, she left without saying good night. After that, the princesses in her stories were always beautiful. Always.” - Kelly Barnhill

47. “Fairy tales represent hundreds of years of stories based on thousands of years of stories told by hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of tellers.” - Kate Bernheimer

48. “Fairy tales and folk tales are for children and childlike people, not because they are little and inconsequential, but because they are as enormous as life itself.” - Anthony Esolen

49. “She wanted to return to her dream. Perhaps it was still somewhere there behind her closed eyelids. Perhaps a little of its happiness still clung like gold dust to her lashes. Don't dreams in fairy tales sometimes leave a token behind?” - Cornelia Funke

50. “Seeing the transformation in Aaron made me wonder how it would feel to have someone-even a not-so-nice guy like Aaron- look at me the way he looked at Anjali.” - Polly Shulman

51. “Contemporary writers use animal-transformation themes to explore issues of gender, sexuality, race, culture, and the process of transformation...just as storytellers have done, all over the world, for many centuries past. One distinct change marks modern retellings, however, reflecting our changed relationship to animals and nature. In a society in which most of us will never encounter true danger in the woods, the big white bear who comes knocking at the door [in fairy tales] is not such a frightening prospective husband now; instead, he's exotic, almost appealing.Whereas once wilderness was threatening to civilization, now it's been tamed and cultivated; the dangers of the animal world have a nostalgic quality, removed as they are from our daily existence. This removal gives "the wild" a different kind of power; it's something we long for rather than fear. The shape-shifter, the were-creature, the stag-headed god from the heart of the woods--they come from a place we'd almost forgotten: the untracked forests of the past; the primeval forests of the mythic imagination; the forests of our childhood fantasies: untouched, unspoiled, limitless.Likewise, tales of Animal Brides and Bridegrooms are steeped in an ancient magic and yet powerfully relevant to our lives today. They remind us of the wild within us...and also within our lovers and spouses, the part of them we can never quite know. They represent the Others who live beside us--cat and mouse and coyote and owl--and the Others who live only in the dreams and nightmares of our imaginations. For thousands of years, their tales have emerged from the place where we draw the boundary lines between animals and human beings, the natural world and civilization, women and men, magic and illusion, fiction and the lives we live.” - Terri Windling

52. “One of my favourite things to do when I write is to bring a sense of wonder to a normal everyday setting... Yes, there are magical elements, but there are also very down-to-earth elements and often what shines through isn’t the magic, but the lanterns that the characters light against the dark... If you substitute the words “fairy tale” or “myth” for “fantasy,” the reason I use these elements in my own work is that they create resonances that illuminate solutions to the real world struggle without the need for an authorial voice to point them out. Magic never solves the problems–we have to do that on our own–but in fiction it allows the dialogue to have a much more organic approach than the talking heads one can encounter in fiction that doesn’t utilize the same tools.[from the interview Year’s Best 2012: Charles de Lint on “A Tangle of Green Men”]” - Charles de Lint

53. “Maybe the witch thought she was protecting Rapunzel, not punishing her. Maybe she thought that if Rapunzel was locked away, no one could ever hurt her. Maybe the witch kept Rapunzel because she loved her, because she was scared that if other people could get to Rapunzel, they would hurt her. And maybe Rapunzel didn't understand the witch; maybe she was angry at her - but maybe she loved her too.” - Alyssa B. Sheinmel

54. “Again, if there are really no fairies, why do people believe in them, all over the world? The ancient Greeks believed, so did the old Egyptians, and the Hindoos, and the Red Indians, and is it likely, if there are no fairies, that so many different peoples would have seen and heard them?” - Andrew Lang

55. “Have you ever pondered the miracle of popcorn? It starts out as a tiny, little, compact kernel with magic trapped inside that when agitated, bursts to create something marvelously desirable. It’s sort of like those tiny, little thoughts trapped inside an author’s head that―in an excited explosion of words―suddenly become a captivating fairy tale!” - Richelle E. Goodrich

56. “I'll tell you a secret about storytelling. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty... were not perfect in the beginning. It's only a happy ending on the last page, right? If the princess had everything from the beginning, there wouldn't be a story. Anyone who is imperfect or incomplete can become the main character in the story.” - Peach-Pit

57. “Fairy tales are rife with transformation — from beast to handsome prince, from dirty scullery maid to well-dressed princess. It is perhaps no coincidence that nature in the Cinderella stories facilitates transformation, for nature itself is a changeable thing, from season to season, from a sunny day to rain, from an egg to a flying bird in a matter of weeks.(Source: "The Nature of Cinderella".)” - Marie Rutkoski

58. “The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To keep to one version or one translation alone is to put robin redbreast in a cage.” - Philip Pullman