76 Captivating Fantasy Quotes

In the realm of literature, fantasy holds a special place where the boundaries of reality dissolve, allowing imagination to roam free. It is a genre that invites readers to explore mystical worlds, encounter extraordinary beings, and experience adventures beyond the ordinary. Amidst the pages of these magical tales, certain passages resonate deeply, capturing the essence of wonder and enchantment. Our carefully curated collection of 76 captivating fantasy quotes is designed to transport you to these enchanted lands, offering glimpses of wisdom, bravery, and dreams as boundless as the worlds they inhabit. Whether you seek inspiration for your own storytelling or simply wish to bask in the eloquence of fantasy’s finest, these quotes serve as a portal to the magic that lies within.

1. “Wisdom’s Pearl doth often dwellClosed in Fancy’s rainbow shell” - John Sterling

2. “I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.” - Patrick Rothfuss

3. “It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.” - Terry Pratchett

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

5. “Love great first lines and paragraphs. From The Yiddish Policemen's Union:Nine months Landsman's been flopping at the Hotel Zamenhof without any of his fellow residents managing to get themselves murdered. Now somebody has put a bullet in the brain of the occupant of 208, a yid who was calling himself Emanuel Lasker. ” - Michael Chabon

6. “Eternity ended ten years ago.” - Brandon Sanderson

7. “Sometimes we seek that which we are not yet ready to find.” - Libba Bray

8. “There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved.” - Michael Ende

9. “Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.” - Charles Baudelaire

10. “for he had acquired, as time went on, the firm conviction that any thought, even the most audacious, that any fiction, even the most insane, can one day materialize and see its fulfillment in space and time.” - Stefan Grabinski

11. “We have just begun to navigate a strange region; we must expect to encounter strange adventures, strange perils.” - Arthur Machen

12. “I believe you to be Filidor Vesh," said the dwarf."You are entitled to your beliefs, however ill-founded," Filidor replied. "No doubt you will wish to search further for this Vesh, rather than impose your presence upon a man called hence by urgent affairs."The dwarf transferred his grip from Filidor's mantle to his arm. His gaze swept quickly over the young man's features. "This belief is supported by the evidence, since you answer to a point the description furnished me.""You are plainly the dupe of some prankster, who abuses the dignity of your years by sending you on a fool's errand," said Filidor. "Were I you, I would seek out the rascal and thrash him.” - Matthew Hughes

13. “never trust a Troglotroll” - Walter Moers

14. “There are no happy endings... There are no endings, happy or otherwise. We all have our own stories which are just part of the one Story that binds both this world and Faerie. Sometimes we step into each others stories - perhaps just for a few minutes, perhaps for years - and then we step out of them again. But all the while, the Story just goes on.” - Charles deLint

15. “ i'm your enemy, meghan. never forget that. if Mab tells me to kill you in front of the entire court, it's my duty to obey.” - Julie Kagawa

16. “Die Welt ist wie Wasser, scharlachrot und sanft gefärbt mit hellem Himmel. Und manchmal sind die Träume, die sich tief in den vergessenen Liedern unserer Kindheit verbergen, wie die Pfade in den Tiefen Wäldern, von jenem schweren Dunkel, das allein zu betreten man sich scheut, weil was dort schlummert, nur selten ist, was man zu finden erhofft.” - Christoph Marzi

17. “there are three kinds of people in the world: those who don't know and don't know they don't know; those who don't know and do know they don't know; and those who know and know how much they still don't know.” - Karen Marie Moning

18. “I get in that kind of situation all the time, Comrade. It's not a big deal." Anger replaced my fear. I didn't like being treated like a child. "Stop calling me that. You don't even know what you're talking about." "Sure I do. I had to do a report on the R.S.S.R. last year.” - Richelle Mead

19. “To light a candle is to cast a shadow” - Kate Forsyth

20. “Rain was coming down in sheets. I could hear it, on the concrete outside and on the old building above me. It creaked and swayed in the spring thunderstorm and the wind, timbers gently flexing, wise enough with age to give a little, rather than put up stubborn resistance until they broke. I could probably stand to learn something from that.” - Jim Butcher

21. “The visions are fragmented and a dark cloud spreads like spilt ink across the pages of possible futures.” - Garth Nix

22. “Non era stato coraggioso, restando lì fermo a farsi pungere - disse Coraline al gatto. - Non era stato coraggioso perché non aveva avuto paura: quella era l'unica cosa che potesse fare. Ma quando era tornato a riprendersi gli occhiali, sapendo che lì c'erano le vespe, aveva avuto veramente paura. Quello era stato vero coraggio. - Mosse il primo passo lungo il corridoio. Sentiva odore di chiuso, di polvere e di umidità. Il gatto avanzata lentamente accanto a lei. - E perché mai? - le domandò il gatto, con un tono che rivelava scarso interesse. - Perché - disse Coraline - quando hai paura di qualcosa, ma la fai comunque, quello è coraggio.” - Neil Gaiman

23. “The stuff you bring back from dreams is free.” - Neil Gaiman

24. “It was all I could do to keep from lunging across the table and pressing my shuttering lips against his burning flesh. My palms were sweating profusely causing me to have to wipe them against my jeans under the table. Those last few seconds had felt like a lifetime in pause.” - Jennifer L. Brown

25. “We've got an unbeatable team."- Sauron” - Robert Lynn Asprin

26. “Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.” - J.K. Rowling

27. “I cannot pretend that I regard this with favor, but the purpose of life is not what we want but what needs to be done.” - Christopher Paolini

28. “Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my soul’s journeying.” - Guy Gavriel Kay

29. “Sulphurous wind gusted in his wake; the dust of the street swirled and the folds of his black coat flapped against his thin body.” - A.F. Stewart

30. “Der Menschensohn strich fast zärtlich über das Doppelblatt der Waffe und bewunderte die verschlungenen Elfenknoten, die es schmückten. “Schöne Arbeit.” Mandred wandte sich zu seinem Sohn. “So sieht die Waffe eines Mannes aus.” Er wollte sie Ollowain zurückgeben, doch dieser schüttelte nur den Kopf. “Ein Geschenk, Mandred. In der Welt der Menschen sollte man stets auf Ärger gefasst sein. Ich bin gespannt zu sehen, ob du mit der Axt besser kämpfst als mit dem Schwert.” - Bernhard Hennen

31. “I'm out of tissues for toilet paper too. History notes just aren't....up to scratch” - Andrea K. Höst

32. “Nice shack” - Anna Banks

33. “So why isn't the world overrun with evil spirits?"Moira stared at her, a half-smile on her face. "Who says it isn't?” - Allison Brennan

34. “It’s complicated,” I said in defense, hands going up to show surrender.“Talk slowly,” Jenna retorted derisively.“Okay, I deserved that,” I admitted.” - Laura Kreitzer

35. “In any case, do you really think kids even want something that is relevant to their daily lives? You think something practical like compound interest is going to get them excited? People enjoy fantasy, and that is just what mathematics can provide -- a relief from daily life, an anodyne to the practical workaday world.” - Paul Lockhart

36. “Recent studies have shown that approximately 40% of authors are manic depressive. The rest of us just drink.” - Melodie Campbell

37. “And then Harry Potter had launched in to a speech that was inspiring, yet vague. A speech to the effect that Fred and George and Lee had tremendous potential if they could just learn to be weirder. To make people's live surreal, instead of just surprising them with the equivalents of buckets of water propped above doors. (Fred and George had exchanged interested looks, they'd never thought of that one.) Harry Potter had invoked a picture of the prank they'd pulled on Neville - which, Harry had mentioned with some remorse, the Sorting Hat had chewed him out on - but which must have made Neville doubt his own sanity. For Neville it would have felt like being suddendly transported into an alternate universe. The same way everyone else had felt when they'd seen Snape apologize. That was the true power of pranking.” - Eliezer Yudkowsky

38. “She had never known that ice could take on so many shades of blue: sharp lines of indigo like the deepest sea, aquamarine shadows, even the glint of blue-green where the sun struck just so.” - Malinda Lo

39. “Never tease anything that wants to eat you." Reign of Blood” - Alexia Purdy

40. “Jiggery pokery!” said Harry in a fierce voice. “Hocus pocus — squiggly wiggly —”“MUUUUUUM!” howled Dudley, “He’s doing you know what!” - J.K. Rowling

41. “Down through this verdant land Carter walked at evening, and saw twilight float up from the river to the marvelous golden spires of Thran. And just at the hour of dusk he came to the southern gate, and was stopped by a red-robed sentry till he had told three dreams beyond belief, and proved himself a dreamer worthy to walk up Thran's steep mysterious streets and linger in the bazaars where the wares of the ornate galleons were sold. Then into that incredible city he walked; through a wall so thick that the gate was a tunnel, and thereafter amidst curved and undulant ways winding deep and narrow between the heavenward towers. Lights shone through grated and balconied windows, and, the sound of lutes and pipes stole timid from inner courts where marble fountains bubbled. Carter knew his way, and edged down through darker streets to the river, where at an old sea tavern he found the captains and seamen he had known in myriad other dreams. There he bought his passage to Celephais on a great green galleon, and there he stopped for the night after speaking gravely to the venerable cat of that inn, who blinked dozing before an enormous hearth and dreamed of old wars and forgotten gods.” - H.P. Lovecraft

42. “Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

43. “Eena had thought the whole idea of his picture was absolutely wonderful and had asked Willum what kind of animal she might be. He’d responded after only a moment of thought. “I think you’d be a crioness.” “Why is that?” “Because they can fly.” “Why would that remind you of me?” She’d been unable to guess his reasoning. “Because few animals can fly. You can do things others can’t do. Like flying. It’s magic.” “Oh. How very clever.” The comparison had left her both impressed and flattered.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

44. “You’re just a figment of my imagination. A fantasy?”“Yes.” He didn’t dare move.“Then why are you still wearing clothes?” - Mina Khan

45. “At least he possessed enough sense to recognize how little sense he possessed.” - Daniel McHugh

46. “Hector wished suddenly that leaving the circus was as easy as joining. He didn't fancy the ghost of Harvey Burfoot hunting him down and passing judgement on him. Troupe mythology varied on the details – some said he had the ability to stop your heart with just a stare, others that he strangled you with corporeal hands that grew stronger as he drained your life-force. Either way, the Law was that nobody left; to leave was death; and Hectordidn't hate himself that much yet.” - Jackie Trippier Holt

47. “A true leader is not meant to be greeted with unanimous praise by his people. A leader is meant to be questioned, to be suspect, to be hated. If he is not, then one can easily assume that either he has not challenged his abilities as a leader by making a decision that creates a split between the people, or he is forcing his subjects to bow before him.” - Evan Meekins

48. “...first thing is that I love you. And the second thing is that as much as I honor your former profession, I don’t think your geese care much for your betrothed and I hope they hadn’t any plans on sharing our bed.” - Shannon Hale

49. “Dreams are pathways for the heart. - Reminim the gnome” - T. William Watts

50. “The momentary darkness gave way to scores of small glowing lights. Blaise stepped into a candlelit room filled with people and furniture. 'Where are we?" he asked Livia. "How can a whole other room be here? There were only two rooms on the top floor.” - Teresa Flavin

51. “Ah yes, now you’re beginning to feel it. It’s so satisfying to see my best efforts coming to fruition. Undoubtedly one of the most gratifying rewards of my profession. It would warm my heart—if I had one.” - Jaye Frances

52. “What’s the difference? Fill a hundred pits with dead Northmen, congratulations, have a parade! Kill one man in the same uniform as you? A crime. A murder. Worse than despicable. Are we not all men? All blood and bone and dreams?” - Joe Abercrombie

53. “Vivant sans souffle,Froid comme la mort,Jamais assoiffé, toujours buvant,En cotte de mailles, jamais cliquetant.(Le poisson)” - J.R.R. Tolkien

54. “Where are we?" Ni asked."This is my work place and the center ofUniverse as well." Simone said."Do you mean the tower is in the center of Universe?" Ni asked“I mean that we are both in space and inside the tower at the same time.""Why is it so dark here?" Ni asked."At the beginning, it is always dark." Simone replied, "Then everything comes into existence little by little.Even Light is born out of Darkness.” - Leora Cika Waldman

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. “From the dark forest that bordered the soft ploughed fields, came a low cry that did not belong to any animal. It was accompanied by the sound of branches bending and snapping, and the splintering of wood as trees were crushed or toppled onto their sides.” - Peter James West

57. “There are more than straight good and evil, aye, even more than law or disorders or fence-sittin'. There's prejudice, whimsey, affection, superstition, habit, upbringing, alliance, pride, society, morals, animosity, preference, values, religon, circumstance, humor, perversity, honor, vengeance, jealousy, frustration...hundreds o' factors, from the past and in every present moment, as decides what some one person'll do in an individious situation.” - Eve Forward Villains By Necessity

58. “Hope was never meant to beA future shared alone,As life cannot be won or lostIt was never ours to own.” - Frederic M. Perrin

59. “Uh, Lunitaris idish, shirak, damen du!” - Margaret Weis

60. “Aquella arruga reflejaba dos características de su naturaleza: su mal carácter y su perenne perplejidad ante cualquier operación mental más compleja que sumar dos y dos con los dedos.” - Javier Negrete

61. “Her courage seemed to collapse around her ankles like an old pair of elastic undies” - Julie Anne Grasso

62. “As McMasters raised the shotgun, the man removed his glasses. There were fields of stars where his eyes should have been. But they weren’t reflections of the night sky. These stars were a glimpse of a dim and distant future where the very laws of physics had been reduced to relics of a forgotten age. Feeble as dying embers, they were the palsied mourners at time’s wake.McMasters could hear the ultimate silence and feel the biting cold of the one true void. The promise of the eternal nothing beckoned to him. There was a sort of peace in the death it represented, not the death of mind and body but of shape and form. It was the final revelation, the casting off of life’s illusion in favor of the void’s embrace. from "Riders of the Necronomicon” - James Pratt

63. “It may seem odd to say that the men who made the myths disliked the irrational and had a love for facts; but it is true, no matter how wildly fantastic some of the stories are...” - Edith Hamilton Mythology

64. “I'm not shooting for happy. I'm aiming for comfortable and fat.” - James Maxey

65. “But when reality was hopeless, fantasy became more and more necessary.” - Michael Grant

66. “Today is a fantasy for tomorrow has gone and yesterday is here!” - Munia Khan

67. “When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles. Not because of any fear of drowned worms or wet stockings; I was by and large a grubby child, with a blissful disregard for filth of any kind.It was because I couldn't bring myself believe that that perfect smooth expanse was no more than I thin film of water over solid earth. I believed it was an opening into some fathomless space. Sometimes, seeing the tiny ripples caused by my approach, I thought the puddle impossibly deep, a bottomless sea in which the lazy coil of a tentacle and gleam of scale lay hidden, with the threat of huge bodies and sharp teeth adrift and silent in the far-down depths.And then, looking down into reflection, I would see my own round face and frizzled hair against a featureless blue sweep, and think instead that the puddle was the entrance to another sky. If I stepped in there, I would drop at once, and keep on falling, on and on, into blue space.The only time I would dare walk though a puddle was at twilight, when the evening stars came out. If I looked in the water and saw one lighted pinprick there, I could slash through unafraid--for if I should fall into the puddle and on into space, I could grab hold of the star as I passed, and be safe.Even now, when I see a puddle in my path, my mind half-halts--though my feet do not--then hurries on, with only the echo of the though left behind.What if, this time, you fall?” - Diana Gabaldon

68. “I like the sounds of words. Words are very enjoyable. I like words because they are... seductive. And I like words because they can contain... fantasies.” - James Lusarde

69. “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

70. “Border crossing' is a recurrent theme in all aspects of my work -- editing, writing, and painting. I'm interested in the various ways artists not only cross borders but also subvert them. In mythology, the old Trickster figure Coyote is a champion border crosser, mischievously dashing from the land of the living to the land of the dead, from the wilderness world of magic to the human world. He tears things down so they can be made anew. He's a rascal, but also a culture hero, dancing on borders, ignoring the rules, as many of our most innovative artists do. I'm particularly drawn to art that crosses the borders critics have erected between 'high art' and 'popular culture,' between 'mainstream' and 'genre,' or between one genre and another -- I love that moment of passage between the two; that place on the border where two worlds meet and energize each other, where Coyote enters and shakes things up. But I still have a great love for traditional fantasy, for Imaginary World, center-of-the-genre stories. I'm still excited by series books and trilogies if they're well written and use mythic tropes in interesting ways.” - Terri Windling

71. “We learned the seven traditional ways to make words unclear.""Seven? That many? Which was the most effective?""Poor grammar skills.” - Lita Burke

72. “Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one’s shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.Words like ‘full’, ‘round’ and even ‘pert’ creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn’t about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling’s Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black.” - Terry Pratchett

73. “To gain your heart's desire you have to lose some part of your old life, your old self. To do that you have to have courage; without it, you can't make the leap. And if you don't make the leap you have only three choices: You can hate yourself for not taking the chance, you can hate the person from whom you've sacrificed your happiness, or you can hate the one who offered you happiness, and blame them for your lack of courage, convince yourself it wasn't real.” - Laurell Hamilton Hit List

74. “Those who die never truly leave us. They are forever there beyond the shimmering of light at the edge of sight.” - Vanna Smythe

75. “By the time I realized I even had a heart at all, it already belonged to you.” - Brittany Comeaux

76. “We also have noses that run and feet that smell.Sometimes the universe just doesn't make sense.” - Alex Bledsoe