Flavia > Flavia's Quotes

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.”
― Martin Buber

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
― Richard Lingard, A Letter of Advice to a Young Gentleman Leaving the University Concerning His Behaviour and Conversation in the World

“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house.”
― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

“You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us.”
― Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

“Never put your faith in a Prince. When you require a miracle, trust in a Witch.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

“The first time I called myself a 'Witch' was the most magical moment of my life.”
― Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America

“In the Scotland of the early seventeenth century, an old woman living alone in Kirkcudbrightshire was accused of witchcraft and on conviction was rolled downhill in a blazing tar barrel. One of the charges against her was that she walked withershins round a well near her cottage which was used by other people. The well was afterwards known as the Witch's Well. These episodes must surely serve as cautionary tales to anyone tempted to transgress the usual custom of walking deasil round a holy well.”
― Colin Bord, Sacred Waters

“Being an American is about having the right to be who you are. Sometimes that doesn't happen.”
― Herb Ritts

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

“The real magic - the magic we'd lived with all our lives, my mother's magic of charms and cantrips, of salt by the door and a red silk sachet to placate the little gods - had turned sour on us that summer, somehow, like a spider that turns from good luck to bad at the stroke of midnight, spinning its web to catch our dreams. And for every little spell of charm, for every card dealt and every rune cast and every sign scratched against a doorway to divert the path of malchance, the wind just blew a little harder, tugging at our clothes, sniffing at us like a hungry dog, moving us here and moving us there.”
― Joanne Harris, The Lollipop Shoes

“A black cat crossed my path, and I stopped to dance around it widdershins and to sing the rhyme,

Ou va-ti mistigri?
Passe sans faire de mai ici.”
― Joanne Harris, Chocolat

“Those that can heal can harm; those that can cure can kill.”
― Celia Rees, Witch Child

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?'
'Cats don't have names,' it said.
'No?' said Coraline.
'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“We are small but we are many
We are many we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Oh- my twitchy witchy girl
I think you are so nice,
I give you bowls of porridge
And I give you bowls of ice
Cream.
I give you lots of kisses,
And I give lots of hugs,
But I never give you sandwiches
With bugs
In.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“When you are scared, but you do it anyway, that's brave.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“being brave didn’t mean you weren’t scared. Being brave meant you were scared, really scared, badly scared, and you did the right thing anyway.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“If I’m honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.”
― Audrey Hepburn

“There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.”
― Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen

“Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories

“Gli esseri umani spesso non riescono a cogliere ciò che li riguarda più da vicino, benché agli altri quello stesso elemento appaia invece palese.”
― Graeme Simsion

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.”
― Garrison Keillor