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Aye, you're neither one thing nor yet quite t'other. Pity, but there 'tis.Eloise Jarvis McGraw
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Why are so many of us enspelled by myths and folk stories in this modern age? Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? I think it's because these stories are not just fantasy. They're about real life. We've all encountered wicked wolves, found fairy godmothers, and faced trial by fire. We've all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another. We've all had to learn to tell friend from foe and to be kind to crones by the side of the road..Terri Windling
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You never know what you're gonna find when you look under those covers - grandma or the wolf.Betsy Schow
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I love children. Eating them, that is.Keith McGowan
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We are the voices in the shadows, Between the light and shade, Betwixt life and restful death, In the dark periphery of the unseen. We’re here, At the edges. We are the villainous punished, The innocent murdered or abandoned, Our lives ended by foul means, or unspeakable deeds. We are your lovers long gone; your siblings forsaken. Can you hear us? At the edges From the Foreword of Cautionary Tales - by Emmanuelle de Maupassant .Emmanuelle De Maupassant
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A beverage of leisure is a serious business, ” Shane Bowermaster was known to declare. “There can be no product of pleasure without the inverse on the end of the producer.Jeff Phillips
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In the end, one detail is unarguable: There will always be those searching for treasure. Never forget: We are a country founded on legends and myths. We love them, especially legends of treasure. Looking for treasure isn't just part of being an American, it is America.Brad Meltzer
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Ha! ’ cackled the fiend, ‘I expect you’d like revenge on that husband of yours. Murder shouldn’t go unpunished, and no creature enjoys delivering chastisement as much as I. What about giving him a taste of his own medicine? If you’d be so kind as to lend me your body, I’ll set him dancing to my tune.’ The wife’s spectre grimaced and nodded, at which the wicked Likho stripped off the nightgown, then the dead woman’s pliant skin, peeling back the flaccid folds. These it left in a slack heap. It gobbled her flesh and sucked the bones clean. These it hid behind the stove, before inserting itself inside the empty, wrinkled carcass, taking the former position of the corpse. Its fat tongue swiped the last juices from around its lips. When the husband returned home, all was as it had been; there was not a speck of blood to be seen, although the strangest smell of rotten eggs lingered .Emmanuelle De Maupassant
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Inside, there was a bed, and upon the bed there was a woman. More beautiful was she even than the damask rose while her scent, drifting through the open window, was that of the night dew. Her hair was silken as the raven's wing. Quite naked, she lay, so still upon the bed, her eyes closed in reverie. The young man looked first upon her breasts, where her hand rested. And upon each breast, there was a rosebud nipple. Upon each nipple there was a tip most tender. Upon each tip there was a milky drop. Chin lifted, lips parted, she milked her maiden breast.' What I would give to suckle at that teat, ' thought he. from 'Against Faithlessness' in Cautionary Tales.Emmanuelle De Maupassant
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Finally, I’d say to anyone who wants to tell these tales, don’t be afraid to be superstitious. If you have a lucky pen, use it. If you speak with more force and wit when wearing one red sock and one blue one, dress like that. When I’m at work I’m highly superstitious. My own superstition has to do with the voice in which the story comes out. I believe that every story is attended by its own sprite, whose voice we embody when we tell the tale, and that we tell it more successfully if we approach the sprite with a certain degree of respect and courtesy. These sprites are both old and young, male and female, sentimental and cynical, sceptical and credulous, and so on, and what’s more, they’re completely amoral: like the air-spirits who helped Strong Hans escape from the cave, the story-sprites are willing to serve whoever has the ring, whoever is telling the tale. To the accusation that this is nonsense, that all you need to tell a story is a human imagination, I reply, ‘Of course, and this is the way my imagination works.Philip Pullman
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In Sussex, if it's not the Devil that makes an appearance, then it's likely to be a dragon.Michael OLeary