“Too many books. . . too many fairy tales led him to believe that there was something romantic in being a soldier.”

“too many maniacs not enough michelangelos”

“After a childhood reading fairy tales and myths, is it any wonder that when I began to write my own stories I included fairy tales? Fairy tales are storytelling at its most basic. They’ve been with mankind for as long as people have told stories to each other. Fairy tales speak to something intrinsic in humans—they touch our most primitive selves. How else to explain that the Cinderella story is told in nearly every society on earth? To think of fairy tales as merely stories for children is to ignore thousands of years when fairy tales were used to teach morality, to warn, and to entertain both children and adults.”

“When the Viennese government compiled a Catalogue of Forbidden Books in 1765, so many Austrians used it as a reading guide that the Hapsburg censors were forced to include the Catalogue itself as a forbidden book.”

“There are too many people in the world as it is, but the supply of ancient manuscripts is severely limited.”

“Gentlemen, when the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon.”

“I dare say there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late.”