E. G. Runyan

“We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary. To understand other people.”
― George MacDonald

“I thought I saw how stories of this kind could sneak past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their true potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.”
― C. S. Lewis

“That evening I was so sad that I didn't know what to do. It was completely impossible to get to sleep. Dad must have understood, because he came up to my room long after he had said good night. He brought his guitar.
I didn't say anything. Neither did Dad, who sat on the edge of the bed. But after a while, he cleared his throat and began to play. He played the Trille tune, just like when I was tiny. It's my very own song, and it was Dad who wrote it. When he finished, he said that he'd written a brand-new song for me, called "Sad Son, Sad Dad."
"Do you want to hear it, Trille?"
I gave a tiny nod.
And as the wintry wind swirled around the house and everyone else slept, my dad played "Sad Son, Sad Dad." I almost couldn't see him because it was so dark. I just listened.
And suddenly I realized what dads are for.”
― Maria Parr, Adventures with Waffles

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
― G.K. Chesterton