Jane Yolen > Quotes

“Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.' That depends... on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.”
― Jane Yolen, Briar Rose

“Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.”
― Jane Yolen, The Books of Great Alta

“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.”
― Jane Yolen

“A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.”
― Jane Yolen, Girl in a Cage

“A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged?”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“Time may heal all wounds, but it does not erase the scars.”
― Jane Yolen, Briar Rose

“You can only chase a butterfly for so long.”
― Jane Yolen, Prince Across the Water

“Stories," he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, "we are made up of stories. And even the ones that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.”
― Jane Yolen, Briar Rose

“You are a name, not a number. Never forget that name, whatever they tell you here. You will always be Chaya—life—to me.”
― Jane Yolen, The Devil's Arithmetic

“And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are:

Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“We all have such stories. It is a brutal arithmetic. But I - I am alive. You are alive. As long as we breathe, we can see and hear. As long as we can remember, all those gone before are alive inside us.”
― Jane Yolen, The Devil's Arithmetic

“The thing I want to know is, if you tell your brain not to do stuff... and it keeps doing it anyway, does that mean your mind has a mind of its own? And if it does, then who's in charge here, anyway?”
― Jane Yolen & Bruce Coville, Armageddon Summer

“Touch magic. Pass it on.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“Part of her revolted against the insanity of the rules. Part of her was grateful. In a world of chaos, any guidelines helped. And she knew that each day she remained alive, she remained alive. One plus one plus one. The Devil's arithmetic...”
― Jane Yolen

“They [Fairy Tales] are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor. People used to understand metaphor better than I think we do now. But these stories are so potent, they refuse to die.”
― Jane Yolen

“1. Write every day
2. Write what interests you.
3. Write for the child inside of you. (Or the adult, if you are writing adult books.)
4. Write with honest emotion
5. Be careful of being facile
6. Be wary of preaching
7. Be prepared for serendipity

Finally I would remind you of something that Churchill told a group of school boys: "Never give up. Never give up. Never, never, never give up.”
― Jane Yolen

“Folklore is the perfect second skin. From under its hide, we can see all the shimmering, shadowy uncertainties of the world.”
― Jane Yolen

“Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the fact that some people survived even as most people died. And can remind us that the swallows still sing around the smokestacks.”
― Jane Yolen

“Shit is another useful word. Also very common. For example, pleasantly surprised? You say 'No shit?' You think someone tells you tales, you scoff 'You're shitting me.' You find something you like very much, you exclaim 'That's good shit!”
― Jane Yolen, Except the Queen

“A mist. A great mist. It covered the entire kingdom. And everyone in it - the good people and the not so good, the young people and the not-so-young, and even Briar Rose's mother and father fell asleep. Everyone slept: lords and ladies, teacher and tummlers, dogs and doves, rabbits and rabbitzen and all kinds of citizens. So fast asleep they were, they were not able to wake up for a hundred years.”
― Jane Yolen, Briar Rose

“The tales of Elfland do not stand or fall on their actuality but on their truthfulness, their speaking to the human condition, the longings we all have for the Faerie Other.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“What is a vow... but the mouth repeating what the heart has already promised?”
― Jane Yolen, Sister Light, Sister Dark

“It is winter now,
and the roses are blooming again,
their petals bright against the snow.
My father died last April;
my sisters no longer write,
except at the turning of the year,
content with their fine houses
and their grandchildren.
Beast and I
putter in the gardens
and walk slowly on the forest paths.

[from the poem, Beauty and the Beast: An Anniversary]”
― Jane Yolen

“Aren't hidden doors the most alluring? The old stories point that out surely. Even the greatest heroes and heroines fall under the spell of a locked door.”
― Jane Yolen, Snow in Summer

“You've got some power," Jakkin said. "One hug—and the lights go out!”
― Jane Yolen, A Sending of Dragons

“How often is the passing of one storm only a prelude to another.”
― Jane Yolen, Queen's Own Fool

“Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.”
― Jane Yolen

“Language helps develp life as surely as it reflects life. It is a most important part of our human condition.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“A shadowless man is a monster, a devil, a thing of evil. A man without a shadow is soulless. A shadow without a man is a pitiable shred. Yet together, light and dark, they make a whole.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood