74 Inspiring Fairy Tale Quotes

The enchanting world of fairy tales has captivated generations, weaving timeless stories that transcend age and culture. These tales are rich with wisdom, magic, and life lessons that continue to inspire and ignite the imagination. From classic fables passed down through the ages to modern reinterpretations, the words within these stories hold a special power. In this blog post, we have curated a delightful collection of 74 inspiring fairy tale quotes that capture the essence of these beloved narratives. Whether you're seeking motivation, reflection, or a touch of whimsy, these quotes are sure to transport you to a realm where dreams come alive and the impossible becomes possible. Join us on this magical journey and let the fairy tale wisdom illuminate your path.

1. “Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual.” - Alfred Hitchcock

2. “In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected."(Frauds on the Fairies, 1853)” - Charles Dickens

3. “If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.” - G.K. Chesterton

4. “At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. Bat at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life,' can add to it.” - C.S. Lewis

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

6. “I will tell you, too, that every fairy tale has a moral. The moral of my story may be that love is a constraint, as strong as any belt. And this is certainly true, which makes it a good moral. Or it may be that we are all constrained in some way, either in our bodies, or in our hearts or minds, an Empress as well as the woman who does her laundry. ... Perhaps it is that a shoemaker's daughter can bear restraint less easily than an aristocrat, that what he can bear for three years she can endure only for three days. ... Or perhaps my moral is that our desire for freedom is stronger than love or pity. That is a wicked moral, or so the Church has taught us. But I do not know which moral is the correct one. And that is also the way of a fairy tale.” - Theodora Goss

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

8. “He was walking into Faerie, in search of a fallen star, with no idea how he would find the star, nor how to keep himself safe and whole as he tried. He looked back and fancied that he could see the lights of Wall behind him, wavering and glimmering as if in a heat-haze, but still inviting.” - Neil Gaiman

9. “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

10. “Classic fairy tales do not deny the existence of heartache and sorrow, but they do deny universal defeat.” - Greenhaven Press

11. “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

12. “It's just that, right now, I want to hear you promise me that if we do run out of time and I go mad, like Miranda, it ends with me. The curse ends here, because our baby will be safe. You will make that happen. Isn't that so?"It took him a minute. "Yes," he said finnally. "It's so. Although, if we're just going to talk about the baby, I can think of an easier way to save her."Oh? What?"I'd just lock her up from her sixteenth birthday on."Lucy didn't laugh. "Don't think I haven't thought of that too, love. but here's the thing. That parents try that in all the fairy tales. It never works.” - Nancy Werlin

13. “Did I ever tell you the difference between a Northern fairy tale and a Southern one?" she asked him, indulging herself and letting her head rest on his shoulder. God, he felt good. Her man. Where her head was meant to lie, right there, on him. "What's the difference?""A Northern one starts 'once upon a time,' while a Southern one starts 'y'all ain't going to believe this shit.” - Erin McCarthy

14. “The strong belief can make things out of imagination.But that can also make facts as if they were fairy tales.” - Toba Beta

15. “The wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone." Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way.” - James Finn Garner

16. “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” - G.K. Chesterton

17. “Madame d'Aulnoy is the true mother of the modern fairy tale. She invented the modern Court of Fairyland, with its manners, its fairies, its queens, its amorous, its cruel, its good, its evil, its odious, its friendly fées.” - Andrew Lang

18. “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

19. “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

20. “That's the thing about being the product of happily marries parents, You grow up thinking the fairy tale is real, and more than that, you think you're entitled to live it. So far, though, it wasn't working out as planned.” - Nicholas Sparks

21. “Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.” - David Hume

22. “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

23. “What Grimm fairy tale featured apiarian morphing humans?” - Solange nicole

24. “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

25. “Do I look like I want to be involved in your teen love saga? Ask someone who cares.” - Priya Ardis

26. “Did you recently turn into a jerk or have you been one since birth?” - Priya Ardis

27. “Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.” - G.K. Chesterton

28. “Once upon a time, when men and women hurtled through the air on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, learning the speech of whales and the songs of the dolphins, when pearly-fleshed and jewelled apparitions of Texan herdsmen and houris shimmered in the dusk on Nicaraguan hillsides, when folk in Norway and Tasmania in dead of winter could dream of fresh strawberries, dates, guavas and passion fruits and find them spread next morning on their tables, there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy.” - A.S. Byatt

29. “Your American fairytales end that way.  Real fairytales end in blood or tears.” - Luna Lindsey

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

31. “THE UNICORN: The saintly hermit, midway through his prayersstopped suddenly, and raised his eyes to witnessthe unbelievable: for there before him stoodthe legendary creature, startling white, thathad approached, soundlessly, pleading with his eyes.The legs, so delicately shaped, balanced abody wrought of finest ivory. And ashe moved, his coat shone like reflected moonlight.High on his forehead rose the magic horn, the signof his uniqueness: a tower held upright by his alert, yet gentle, timid gait.The mouth of softest tints of rose and grey, whenopened slightly, revealed his gleaming teeth,whiter than snow. The nostrils quivered faintly:he sought to quench his thirst, to rest and find repose.His eyes looked far beyond the saint's enclosure,reflecting vistas and events long vanished,and closed the circle of this ancient mystic legend.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

32. “Fairy tales thrive on black and white. In life, there’s only grey – no bad guys, no good guys. You could be the Cheshire cat, Snow White, a troll or a pastry-making witch whose diet consists only of little kids, but you’ll always be you.” - Arnold Arre

33. “Vane grabbed me. “DuLac, let’s chat.”Chat. British-speak for “Stand still while I yell at you.” - Priya Ardis

34. “Vane’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “Why so hostile, love?”“You whacked me on the head with a ball!”“You deserved it.” - Priya Ardis

35. “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

36. “Once upon a time, they say, there was a girl...there was a boy...there was a person who was in trouble. And this is what she did...and what he did...and how they learned to survive it. This is what they did...and why one failed...and why another triumphed in the end. And I know that it's true, because I danced at their wedding and drank their very best wine.” - Terri Windling

37. “I caught his hand. “What do you want me to do?”Leaning down, he kissed the pulse beating on my neck just above the damaged skin. “Tomorrow, I need you to die.” - Priya Ardis

38. “Plus, I happened to be a history nerd. Why else would I be interested in a guy born in the year 519?” - Priya Ardis

39. “The combination of razor-sharp wit (completely real) and his credentials (completely fake) had won them over in the end.” - Priya Ardis

40. “Well, can you tell her that?"He looked down at his feet. "I will. I will."Guy-speak for, "I plan to keep avoiding her until she gives up.” - Priya Ardis

41. “If I were to lock you up in a dungeon, I guarantee you would not be bored.” - Priya Ardis

42. “Please tell a story about a girl who gets away.”I would, even if I had to adapt one, even if I had to make one up just for her. “Gets away from what, though?”“From her fairy godmother. From the happy ending that isn’t really happy at all. Please have her get out and run off the page altogether, to somewhere secret where words like ‘happy’ and ‘good’ will never find her.”“You don’t want her to be happy and good?”“I’m not sure what’s really meant by happy and good. I would like her to be free. Now. Please begin.” - Helen Oyeyemi

43. “The unrealistic nature of these tales (which narrowminded rationalists object to) is an important device, because it makes obvious that the fairy tales’ concern is not useful information about the external world, but the inner process taking place in an individual.” - Bruno Bettelheim

44. “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

45. “Fairy tales in childhood are stepping stones throughout life, leading the way through trouble and trial. The value of fairy tales lies not in a brief literary escape from reality, but in the gift of hope that goodness truly is more powerful than evil and that even the darkest reality can lead to a Happily Ever After. Do not take that gift of hope lightly. It has the power to conquer despair in the midst of sorrow, to light the darkness in the valleys of life, to whisper “One more time” in the face of failure. Hope is what gives life to dreams, making the fairy tale the reality.” - L.R. Knost

46. “Do you think we can be friends?” I asked.He stared up at the ceiling. “Probably not, but we can pretend.” - Priya Ardis

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

48. “It was our passion for words and our ardent desire to write that drew me and Michael together, and the same that drove us apart.Michael wanted to be a great playwright, like the former master Molière. He had high ambitions and scorned what I wrote as frivolous and feminine.‘All these disguises and duels and abductions,’ he said contemptuously, one day a year or so after our affair began, slapping down the pile of paper covered with my sprawling handwriting. ‘All these desperate love affairs. And you wish me to take you seriously.’‘I like disguises and duels.’ I sat bolt upright on the edge of my bed. ‘Better than those dreary boring plays you write. At least something happens in my stories.’‘At least my plays are about something.’‘My stories are about something too. Just because they aren’t boring doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy.’‘What are they about? Love’ He clasped his hands together near his ear and fluttered his eyelashes.’‘Yes, love. What’s wrong with writing about love? Everyone longs for love.’‘Aren’t there enough love stories in the world without adding to them?‘Isn’t there enough misery and tragedy?’Michael snorted with contempt.‘What’s wrong with wanting to be happy?‘It’s sugary and sentimental.’‘Sugary? I’m not sugary.’ I was so angry that I hurled my shoes at his head.” - Kate Forsyth

49. “If this were a fairy tale, this would be the part where the fishboy appears and Diana shoots him through the heart. Because he is a tragic hero, he's our fucking Gatsby, and he lived for his fish and he has to die for his fish. He would never let my fake authority, condoning his abandonment, making up rules about what's okay just to save his life, convince him to give up his family. He would never leave.He would know that without him, none of us will be as good. Me, without a friend; and the fish, without a brother; and the island, without a story; and Diana, without her something real, we will all be a little bit less than we were before we knew him.So he wouldn't leave. Not until I could come with him. And I have never been less able to leave than I am now.But this isn't a fairy tale, and he doesn't appear. We stand here for a long time.He really left.Because it was all that we could do.” - Hannah Moskowitz

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

51. “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

52. “The more one knows fairy tales the less fantastical they appear; they can be vehicles of the grimmest realism, expressing hope against all the odds with gritted teeth.” - Marina Warner

53. “Yesterday's fairy tale is today's fact. The magician is only one step ahead of his audience.” - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

54. “The happily ever after thing. It's great when she marries the prince or whatever and they say that. But they just don't show the part where there's a revolution and they drag her to the guillotine.” - Mark D. Diehl

55. “Birthdays were wretched, delicious things when you lived in Beau Rivage. The clock stuck midnight, and presents gave way to magic.Curses bloomed.Girls bit into sharp apples instead of birthday cake, chocked on the ruby-and-white slivers, and collapsed into enchanted sleep. Unconscious beneath cobweb canopies, frozen in coffins of glass, they waited for their princes to come. Or they tricked ogres, traded their voices for love, danced until their glass slippers cracked.A prince would awaken, roused by the promise of true love, and find he had a witch to destroy. A heart to steal. To tear from the rib cage, where it was cushioned by bloody velvet, and deliver it to the queen who demanded the princess's death. Girls became victims and heroines.Boys became lovers and murderers.And sometimes... they became both.” - Sarah Cross

56. “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

57. “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

58. “...remember that the danger that is most to be feared is never the danger we are most afraid of.” - Andrew Lang

59. “...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

60. “Beware a kiss, he told her. Kisses are powerful things. You expose part of your soul.” - Ruth Frances Long

61. “Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict. We are all misfit for the world, and somehow we must fit in, fit in with other people, and thus we must invent or find the means through communication to satisfy as well as resolve conflicting desires and instincts.” - Jack Zipes

62. “Gardens are made of darkness and light entwined.” - F.T. McKinstry

63. “In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen. ... Lear goes berserk on a heath but comes out of it for a few brief hours every inch a king. Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ.” - Frederick Buechner

64. “Since there are thousands of fairy tales, one may safely guess that there are probably equal numbers where the courage and determination of females rescue males, and vice versa.” - Bruno Bettelheim

65. “... the world can give you these glimpses as well as fairy tales can--the smell of rain, the dazzle of sun on white clapboard with the shadows of ferns and wash on the line, the wildness of a winter storm when in the house the flame of a candle doesn't even flicker.” - Frederick Buechner

66. “But she never could keep it straight. All the letters, the acronyms, the codes, the colors, changing like musical chairs, every week, every month. Games demons play. It meant nothing to her, except in a charming sort of way, as it had when Naganya wanted to play at interrogation, while the rest of them wanted chess.” - Catherynne M. Valente

67. “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

68. “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

69. “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

70. “And those characters [in a fairy tale] dwell in a moral world, whose laws are as clear as the law of gravity. That too is a great advantage of the folk tale. It is not a failure of imagination to see the sky blue. It is a failure rather to be weary of its being blue- and not to notice how blue it is. And appreciation of the subtler colors of the sky will come later. In the folk tale, good is good and evil is evil, and the former will triumph and later will fail. This is not the result of the imaginative quest. It is rather its principle and foundation. It is what will enable the child later on to understand Macbeth, or Don Quixote, or David Copperfield.” - Anthony Esolen

71. “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

72. “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

73. “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

74. “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