“There is an old saying that there is no country as unhappy as one that need heroes."(King Pelles the Sure)”

“Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.”

“Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl.”

“I am a king's daughter,And if I cared to care,The moon that has no mistressWould flutter in my hair.No one dares to cherishWhat I choose to crave.Never have I hungered,For that I did not haveI am a kings daughter,And I grow old withinThe prison of my person,The shackles of my skin.And I would run awayAnd beg from door to door,Just to see your shadowOnce, and never more. ”

“Still the king would have turned away, but Schmendrick touched his arm and leaned near. "It's true, you know," he whispered. "But for him--but for them all--the tale would have worked out quite another way, and who can say that the ending would have been even as happy as this? You must be their king, and you must rule them as kindly as you would a braver and more faithful folk. For they are your fate.”

“You were the one who taught me," he said. "I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you.”

“We are our own dragons and our own heroes. We must rescue ourselves from ourselves.”