100 Quotes About Fantasy

If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be. Patrick Rothfuss

I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words. C.s. Lewis

I’m going to tell you something once and then whether you die is strictly up to you, " Westley said, lying pleasantly on the bed. "What I’m going to tell you is this: drop your sword, and if you do, then I will leave with this baggage here"–he glanced at Buttercup–"and you will be tied up but not fatally, and will be free to go about your business. And if you choose to fight, well, then, we will not both leave alive." You are only alive now because you said 'to the pain.' I want that phrase explained." My pleasure. To the pain means this: if we duel and you win, death for me. If we duel and I win, life for you. But life on my terms. The first thing you lose will be your feet. Below the ankle. You will have stumps available to use within six months. Then your hands, at the wrists. They heal somewhat quicker. Five months is a fair average. Next your nose. No smell of dawn for you. Followed by your tongue. Deeply cut away. Not even a stump left. And then your left eye–" And then my right eye, and then my ears, and shall we get on with it?" the Prince said. Wrong! " Westley’s voice rang across the room. "Your ears you keep, so that every shriek of every child shall be yours to cherish–every babe that weeps in fear at your approach, every woman that cries 'Dear God, what is that thing?' will reverberate forever with your perfect ears. That is what 'to the pain' means. It means that I leave you in anguish, in humiliation, in freakish misery until you can stand it no more; so there you have it, pig, there you know, you miserable vomitous mass, and I say this now, and live or die, it’s up to you: Drop your sword! " The sword crashed to the floor. . William Goldman

It looks as though your shop is doing well, " Luka said gazing around, "Could you help me find a gift for a lady friend of mine?" My heart plunged to my grenn satin slippers, and I had to stare down at Azarte for a minute, petting him hard. Naturally Luka had a "lady friend." She was probably nobly born: the daughter of a count or a duke. I imagined her having thick dark hair and clear skin, and was bitterly jealous. "Of course, " I stammered after a time. "What would she like? A gown? A sash?" If she came in for a fitting, I decided to "accidentlly" poke her with every pin. Jessica Day George

Nothing is safe from you. If I were to court a girl who lived on an iceberg in the middle of the ocean, sooner or later– probably sooner– I’d look up to see you swooping overhead on a broomstick. In fact, by now I’d be disappointed in you if I didn’t see you.” “Are you off to the iceberg today?” Sophie retorted. Diana Wynne Jones

Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?... If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can! J.r.r. Tolkien

People should decide on the books' meanings for themselves. They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence. Philip Pullman

Magic is a dangerous thing, child. It isn’t something to use lightly. Kevis Hendrickson

Wisdom’s Pearl doth often dwell Closed in Fancy’s rainbow shell John Sterling

Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat and the thrill, and it was as bright within her as a swallowed star. Laini Taylor

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

There are plastic bags with zippers on them. I've seen them in commercials, " Dragos said to her. He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name. "You put food in them."" Ziploc bags?" she asked in a cautious voice. He pointed at her. "Yes. I want one. Thea Harrison

I slipped in and out of consciousness as time stretched and flowed around me. Dreams and reality blurred, but I liked the dreams better. Noah was in them. I dreamed of us, walking hand in hand down a crowded street in the middle of the day. We were in New York. I was in no rush– I could walk with him forever–but Noah was. He pulled me alongside him, strong and determined and not smiling. Not today. We wove among the people, somehow not touching a single one. The trees were green and blossoming. It was spring, almost summer. A strong wind shook a few steadfast flowers off of the branches and into our path. We ignored them. Noah led me into Central Park. It was teeming with human life. Bright colored picnic blankets burst across the lawn, the pale, outstretched forms of people wriggling over them like worms in fruit. We passed the reservoir, the sun reflecting off its surface, and then the crowd began to thicken. They funneled into a throbbing mass as we strode up a hill, over and through. Until we could see them all below us, angry and electric. Noah reached into his bag. He pulled out the little cloth doll, my grandmother’s. The one we burned. . Michelle Hodkin

Michael nodded tersely, eyeing a table across the room. It was empty. So empty. So joyfully, blessedly empty. He could picture himself a very happy man at that table." Not feeling very conversational this evening, are we?" Colin asked, breaking into his (admittedly tame) fantasies. Julia Quinn

Yes, I’m Daniel Tahi." I know what your lips taste like. I know you roll your eyes when you think someone is an idiot. I know that you wish you were six inches shorter because you hate being taller than most of the boys you've ever met. Your name is tattooed across my chest and written on my heart. You are a fire daughter of earth, fanua afi and I am vasa loloa, son of the ocean. I am yours.. And you can’t even remember who I am. . Lani Wendt Young

Gavin! What’ll I wear home?”“ Cloak.” His voice roughened and he ripped harder, tossing the material to the ground. I felt his smile when he kissed my neck, and shivers ran down my back at the sound of his low growl.“ I made that! I don’t have many of those, you know.”“ Cam, ” he snaked one hand around my stomach and made his way north, slipping one hand into my corset top to grope my chest. “You won’t be thinking about it when I’m inside you.” His hips shifted off my back and he separated my legs with his knee, his breathing ragged against my shoulder. “Now forget the damn dress. . Rachael Wade

Joel’s face swam across my vision and I blinked, goose bumps running up my arms. I shook his memory away, determined to stay focused, although my heart caved at the thought of his last words to us, right here in this very spot: Take care of each other. I’d be damned if I was going to let him down now. Rachael Wade

Samira’s guards are coming for you. You’re being summoned. Didn’t you hear the horn? Come on, they’ll be here any second looking for you.” I bit my lip to hold back a smile of my own at why we hadn’t heard the horn.“ Summoning me …”“Your guess is as good as mine, now come on. Cam, for crying out loud, fix your hair.” She cocked her eyebrow and gave me the I-know-you’ve-been-messing-around look. “And you, ” she shot Gavin the same look, “zip up your fly, Don Juan.” She rolled her eyes and turned for the door. Rachael Wade

Gavin, I never thought you’d be the irrational one in this relationship, but I’m happy to report that you’ve just thoroughly shocked me.” He rolled to his side to lean on his arm, keeping my hand resting on his chest, buried underneath his shirt. “I know. My timing is impeccable.” He smirked, letting his hungry gaze drift over my body. “But I’m sorry, love. I cannot take seeing you all tucked up in this sexy corset anymore. The ties are so tight, they’re just begging me to undo them.” His fingers trailed over the top of my chest and down over the corset’s binding, tugging at the edges of the lace as he went. “Forcefully, ” he winked. . Rachael Wade

So is this being in love? I stay with the moment, waiting to find out, the space between us fluctuating with uncertainty. The only thing I am sure of is that each time his lips leave mine they are right back again. Kea Alwang

But then it was over too quickly and they pulled away. She knew they couldn't stand there and kiss like a couple on the run in a thriller. Joss Ware

Love is when you’d rather see someone one last time and die, than never see their face again. Bryan Butvidas

Please, let me take you home. You’re drunk.”“ I am not.” I shoved him, spilling some kind of delicious poison on him. “Go home and have a wild time with Ms. Scarlet. In the bedroom. With the–”“ Okay, you’re starting to talk board game. Let’s go home, babe. I’ll get you into bed. Rachael Wade

I saw it in his eyes, first–the beginning of the end, the beginning of things to come. The blackest night, they cut into me, paralyzing my trembling body. Not even the gods could sense my fear now, for the celebration of the monsters who’d claimed me drowned out all perception of pain. It was all-powerful, all-knowing, the definition of infinite, an overwhelming possession that consumed every inch of my being. . Rachael Wade

Gavin turned us to face Josh, a satisfied grin springing up when he noticed the condition of Josh’s clothes. “Thanks for the last-minute invitation, man.” Josh chuckled, patting Gavin on the shoulder. “Shall I do the honors, Mr. Suave?” “Sure thing, Frodo Baggins. By the way, I hear the Shire has impeccable dinner parties this time of year.” The corners of Gavin’s lips twitched and his eyebrows shot up as he gestured to a food stain of some sort near the collar of Josh’s white shirt. Josh’s chin shot down to follow Gavin’s amusement and he quickly tried to wipe away the crumbs. “Yeah, well … you know how we hobbits like to eat. . Rachael Wade

I looked around the room, at everyone who inhabited the space, person and monster, slave and master, aware we were in the madness together, swirling around in the same mess, all out to get something, a piece of our own pie. But I knew that in the midst of that noxious stew, coming to terms with our poisons was only the beginning. Ever forward, Cecile’s voice replayed in my mind. Ever forward. Rachael Wade

In the deepest, darkest depths of her heart where she kept all her dreams locked up in a pink journal decorated with ponies and unicorns, she’d fantasized about declaring her love for Sasha Karimi for two years. In those scenarios, he generally fell to his knees in thrilled delight before he reciprocated the feelings and then they got married and had lots of babies and maybe a pet iguana and lived happily ever after. Alisha Rai

Excuse me? You're the one who was out to mislead me with your alluring bimbo slinkiness! What if I had believed your act last night? What if I had fallen deeply and madly in love with you? You would have had the blood of my love-sickness on your hands, Leila Folger. Lani Wendt Young

Wonderful.” Avenant rolled his eyes. “Letty’s killed the doctor. Now I’ll have to start all over with training another one to stand when I enter a room. It’ll take weeks. Cassandra Gannon

They are ever-changing. They are unlike immortals who stay young and beautiful forever–who have time under their control. Humans, they only have a few years to live, and yet there is beauty in the way time controls them. Kaye Allen

I began composing the next poem, the one that was to be written next. Not the last poem of those I had read, but the poem written in the head of someone who may never have existed but who had certainly written another poem nonetheless, and just never had the chance to commit it to ink and the page. Steve Erickson

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? J.r.r. Tolkien

Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be. Patrick Rothfuss

Part of the appeal of the fantastic is taking ridiculous ideas very seriously and pretending they're not absurd. Unknown

One of the most brilliant Russian writers of the twentieth century, Yevgeny Zamyatin belongs to the tradition in Russian literature represented by Gogol, Leskov, Bely, Remizov, and, in certain aspects of their work, also by Babel and Bulgakov. It is a tradition, paradoxically, of experimenters and innovators. Perhaps the principal quality that unites them is their approach to reality and its uses in art - the refusal to be bound by literal fact, the interweaving of reality and fantasy, the transmutation of fact into poetry, often grotesque, oblique, playful, but always expressive of the writer's unique vision of life in his own, unique terms. Mirra Ginsburg

Dreamworlds can maintain themselves only as glimpses. Once the writer transports the reader across the threshold, nothing that was promised can be delivered. What was ominous becomes ordinary; what was bizarre, quotidian. Unless you simply keep upping the ante, piling on the bullshit, the only way to revive things is to switch perspectives as quickly as you can. M. John Harrison

While I have the floor, here's a question that's been bothering me for some time. Why do so few writers of heroic or epic fantasy ever deal with the fundamental quandary of their novels . that so many of them take place in cultures that are rigid, hierarchical, stratified, and in essence oppressive? What is so appealing about feudalism, that so many free citizens of an educated commonwealth like ours love reading about and picturing life under hereditary lords?, such as flush toilets, movable type, or electricity for every home in the kingdom? Given half a chance, the sons and daughters of peasants would rather not grow up to be servants. It seems bizarre for modern folk to pine for a way of life our ancestors rightfully fought desperately to escape. David Brin

The cry that 'fantasy is escapist' compared to the novel is only an echo of the older cry that novels are 'escapist' compared with biography, and to both cries one should make the same answer: that freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter a general applicability from a particular story. Tom Shippey

Not many years before the Happening, one of your country's largest religious bodies officially declared that their book was holier than their God, thus simultaneously and corporately breaking several commandments of their own religion, particularly the first one. Of course they liked the book better! It was full of magic and contradictions that they could quote to reinforce their bigoted and hateful opinions, as I well know, for I chose many parts of it from among the scrolls and epistles that were lying around in caves here and there. They're correct that a god picked out the material; they just have the wrong god doing it.( The small god in Ch. 44). Sheri S. Tepper

I know, I know, " Moore said. "Mad beliefs like that, eh? Must be some metaphor, right? Must mean something else?" Shook his head. "What an awfully arrogant thing. What if faiths are exactly what they are? And mean exactly what they say?" "Stop trying to make sense of it and just listen, " Dane said." And what, " Moore said, "if a large part of the reason they're so tenacious is that they're perfectly accurate?. Unknown

The will of God or the lunacy of man - it seemed to him that you could take your choice, if you wanted a good enough reason for most things. Or, alternatively (and he thought of it as he contemplated the small orderliness of the cabin against the window background of such frantic natural scenery), the will of man and the lunacy of God. James Hilton

Often, beyond the next turning, footfalls of a herd galloping across stone were heard, or further in the distance, with reassuring grunts, a wild boar could be seen, trotting with steady stride along the edge of the road with her sow and a whole procession of young in tow. And then one's heart beat faster upon advancing a little into the subtle light: one might have said that the path had suddenly become wild, thick with grass, its dark paving-slabs engulfed by nettles, blackthorn and sloe, so that it mingled up time past rather than crossing country-side, and perhaps it was going to issue forth, in the chiaroscuro of thicket smelling of moistened down and fresh grass, into one of those glades where animals spoke to men. Julien Gracq

Goblin tea resembles a nice cup of Earl Grey in much the same way that a catfish resembles the common tabby. They share a name, but one is a nice thing to curl up with on a rainy afternoon, and the other is found in the muck at the bottom of polluted rivers and has bits of debris sticking to it. T. Kingfisher

I handed him a beaker and toyed with the pleats of my skirt. The folds kept rippling against my knees in a distracting way. It was one of Naomi's additions to my wardrobe. I quickly decided that I hated it. Andrea Cremer

I’m not your boyfriend! ” I snapped, trying to gently move her hands away from my body.“ How can you say that?” Sara asked in horror.“ It’s shockingly effortless, ” I replied. “My vocal chords vibrate, and my mouth and tongue articulate. I can even do it without thinking.” I had to remind myself to stay calm, and sarcasm was the best way to do that.“ When are you going to give me a key to your house so I don’t have to knock like some guest?” Sara asked, coming at me again. I backed away. “How about never? Is never good for you?” Sara, undeterred, said, “You’re the reason I go to therapy on Fridays.”“The plot thickens! ” Gabby exclaimed for comedic relief. Laura Kreitzer

Underwater, bubbles erupted before my eyes as a swift hand snatched my arm and pulled me to the surface. I gasped for air, coughing and gagging at the amount of water I sucked into my lungs by pure shock. What was up with me and breathing in water? I needed to grow some gills or something. Laura Kreitzer

It just doesn't seem right to spend your entire life drinking, when you could be exploring the world."" Or, " Zhy said as he hefted a mug to his lips, "it doesn't seem right to be risking your life running down warlocks when you could be sitting on a nice, warm bar stool. Martin D. Gibbs