Tale Quotes

“We shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually — their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on — and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same — like old Mr Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“When I was a boy, my mother would tell me that one of the best things in life is the knowledge that our story isn't over yet. Our story may have come to a close, but your story is still yet to be told.
Make it a story worthy of you”
― Renee Ahdieh, The Wrath and the Dawn

“People who don’t construe their life and don’t frame their own tale, stay on the sidelines, remain only an act without a story and turn into an "empty box". Out-of-the-box thinking and inventiveness remains then merely wishfull thinking. ( "Everybody his story" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Comes the tipping point in life, when we decide to a ‘stop and search’ and our emotional police bring us to a standstill. This allows us to scan all the little details in the spectrum of our being; scour all fuzzy or cryptic elements that are floating around in our mind and restore the fault lines in the cluttered tale of our life. ("The world was somewhere else")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“You know, considering your IQ, you're really socially retarded sometimes.”
― Shannon Delany, 13 to Life

“There is but one world and everything that is imaginable is necessary to it. For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of all lesser tales and yet these are also the selfsame tale and contain as well all else within them. So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall. And those seams that are hid from us are of course in the tale itself and the tale has no abode or place of beind except in the telling only and there it lives and makes its home and therefore we can never be done with the telling. Of the telling there is no end. And . . . in whatever . . . place by whatever . . . name or by no name at all . . . all tales are one. Rightly heard all tales are one.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

“You need mountains, long staircases don't make good hikers.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter or shutting a book, did not end the tale.
Having admitted that, he would also avow that happy endings were never difficult to find: "It is simply a matter," he explained to April, "of finding a sunny place in a garden, where the light is golden and the grass is soft; somewhere to rest, to stop reading, and to be content.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists

“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.”
― The Bhagavad Gita

“The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale...”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Life isn't a fairytale but we can make it like a fairytale”
― Lucy 'Aisy

“Once upon a time, the Reindeer took a running leap and jumped over the Northern Lights.

But he jumped too low, and the long fur of his beautiful flowing tail got singed by the rainbow fires of the aurora.

To this day the reindeer has no tail to speak of. But he is too busy pulling the Important Sleigh to notice what is lost. And he certainly doesn’t complain.

What's your excuse?”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Can you tell me what happened?"

Her lips thinned as she shook her head. "'Tis not a happy tale."

"You have me reading a book about a girl who tries to kill an entire town. Anything else at this point would be a pick me up.”
― Jenny B. Jones, There You'll Find Me

“I'll tell you a secret.

Old storytellers never die.

They disappear into their own story.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Two forces create eternity – a fairy tale and a dream from the fairy tale.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“And that’s how it is in this world, boy. Start a tale, just a little tale that should fade and die—take your eye off it for just a moment and when you turn back it’s grown big enough to grab you up in its teeth and shake you. That’s how it is. All our lives are tales. Some spread, and grow in the telling. Others are just told between us and the gods, muttered back and forth behind our days, but those tales grow too and shake us just as fierce.”
― Mark Lawrence, Prince of Fools

“Everyone listened to this amusing narrative with great interest, and the moment that Behemoth concluded it, they all shouted in unison: 'Lies!”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

“You can’t tell half a tale, Poison. You can’t write half a book. Whatever you choose to do next will completely change the aspect of what has gone before. if you decided to suddenly kill your friends as they slept –“
Why would I do that?” Poison interjected.
Bear with me,” Fleet said patiently. “If you did, then the tale would take on a whole new light. Instead of being the journey of Poison from Gull to save her sister, it would be the terrible story of how a young girl became a cold-blooded killer. They way it would be written would be different. Do you see? Or you might die right now, and it would turn out that it wasn’t your tale all along it was Bram’s or Peppercorn’s, and you were just one of the sideline characters. The whole story has to be known before it can be recorded; otherwise it might suddenly change. That’s the beauty, Poison. You never know what’s going to happen next. When the tale is ended, then the writing will be visible to your eyes; until then it is unwritten.”
― Chris Wooding, Poison

“Under every roof, a story, just as behind every brow, a history”
― Gregory Maguire, Son of a Witch

“The implication of this particular tale is: Trust strangers. Believe in magic.”
― Michael Cunningham, A Wild Swan: And Other Tales

“It is a tale that you sing. As long as you believe it, it makes you powerful.”
― Kieron Gillen, The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 9: Okay

“Ketika kau memiliki firasat buruk tentang kehilangan orang yang paling berharga, kau akan mencoba untuk tidak mempercayainya. Tetapi jika kelak firasat itu semakin nyata, kau akan melakukan apa pun untuk menjaga orang yang paling berharga itu. Sekalipun akhirnya kau tetap kehilangannya!”
― K.A.Z_Violin, Eldar: Violin & Negeri Salju Abadi

“Di tempat paling dingin sekalipun... selalu ada cerita hangat,”
― K.A.Z_Violin, Eldar: Violin & Negeri Salju Abadi

“Demi Eldar..., demi Eldar yang mereka bilang aku khianati..., aku akan mendapatkanmu lagi!!”
― K.A.Z_Violin, Eldar: Violin & Negeri Salju Abadi

“Sugar candy tasted better than bitter truth.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“An ancient and medieval tale that I just invented. In a tiny village deep in the countryside, an old lady and a priest were constantly at odds. He called her a witch, and she called him a sanctimonious fool. She maintained an independent, critical stance, always alert to the priest’s failings. He, on the other hand, could no longer tolerate the constant provocations of the elderly lady. Until one day, the old lady discovered and spread throughout the village the secret affair between the priest and a widow from the community. The priest, immediately, in a frenzy, went to the center of the village and declared to all: “The old woman who spread these lies is a witch! Let’s burn her!” The old woman, who was passing by, approached the priest, looked him in the eyes, and said: “In your eyes, I may look like a witch for telling the truth. But as for you, who dresses with airs of holiness, despite the sins you hide beneath your robes... If I am to go to the stake, let it be with good wood. As for you, you will burn in hell. And that’s that.”
― Geverson Ampolini

“Not every person you see walking down the street is truly alive; some of them have already died in their own stories”
― Shahid Hussain Raja

“You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“He took the note in his pocket, and the gift in his
heart. Then he closed the door.
Christmas was beginning.

(Il prit le mot dans sa poche, et le cadeau dans son
cœur. Puis il ferma la porte.
Noël commençait.)”
― Charles de Leusse, Les contes de la nuit / The tales of the night: 50 contes / 50 tales

“The Abyss of Voices

It is said, among the oldest monks of a secluded monastery high in the mountains of Tibet, that there is an abyss that screams. On the side of a mountain shrouded in eternal mist, one can occasionally hear sounds that resemble human voices — cries echoing from within the rocks.
For centuries, stories have multiplied. Some claimed they were tormented souls, paying for forgotten sins. Others believed that deceitful spirits dwelled in the abyss, luring the curious to their own fall.
Dampa, a young monk driven more by search than by faith, had heard these legends since childhood. One morning, determined to uncover the source of the sounds, he descended the steep slope of the mountain, guided only by the echoes and the cold that cut like a blade.
The voices, once distant, became clear — not moans, but screams. Not laments, but pleas. Until, reaching a narrow ledge at the edge of the precipice, he leaned forward to hear better. And then, he fell.
He awoke on hard stone, in a narrow crevice in the mountain. Pain throbbed through his body. He was bleeding. He could barely move.
There were others there. Three, perhaps four men — and many bones. Thin, exhausted, some too weak even to scream. One of them, leaning against the cavern wall, spoke with a hoarse voice:
— The voices… you heard them, didn’t you? We all did. We all came. And we all fell.
Dampa tried to sit up, but his body did not respond.
— We haven’t been here long — the man continued. — Some for days. Others, less. Most die within hours. The ones who survive… they scream. And hope someone hears. Not to be saved, but not to die alone.
Dampa closed his eyes. The sound of the cries rose and vanished into the mountain’s pale, empty sky.
And the abyss kept calling.”
― Geverson Ampolini