Emily M’s Reviews > The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales > Status Update

“‘Wishes always come in threes,’ the Wizard said. ‘And sacrifices, too. So far, you’ve given up walking. You’ve given up speech. One more to go.’ ‘Why does he want me to give up the dog?’ she wrote. The Wizard looked sorrowfully at her from under his bushy brows. ‘Because you love it,’ he said. ‘But that takes nothing from him!’ she scribbled…the same thing could be said of her height and her speech.”

“‘I hope all your mixtures are not as expensive,’ said Alan apprehensively. ‘Oh dear no,’ said the old man. ‘It would be no good charging that sort of price for a love potion, for example. Young people who need a love potion very seldom have five thousand dollars. Otherwise they would not need a love potion.’”

“Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: How much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness.”
Uh…TH White, you OK, man?

“One day she decided it was better to be a Wild Thing in the lonely marshes than to have a soul that cried for beautiful things and found not one…she told her story to one of the factory girls and said to her: ‘The other girls are poorly clad and they do soulless work; surely some of them have no souls and would take mine.’ But the factory girl said to her: ‘All the poor have souls; it is all they have.’”

“A king once died, as kings are apt to do, being as liable to shortness of breath as other mortals…His father had left him a full treasury…But the foolish king just deceased had squandered every penny in riotous living…Don’t ask me to explain what riotous living is. I only know, from hearsay, that it is an excellent way to get rid of money.”

“‘Look here, father…You know about sheep, and weather, and things. I know about dragons. I always said, you know, that that cave up there was a dragon cave…Well, now you tell me it HAS got a dragon, so THAT’S all right.”

"'Do you know...that I have had, and still have, a great liking for you?' 'I am very glad to hear it,' said the Minor Canon, with his usual politeness. 'I am not at all sure you would be,' said the Griffin, 'If you thoroughly understood the state of the case, but we will not consider that now.'"

Why do I feel like this would be a gay monster romance if it were written today, instead of 1887?

“When you had that bit of wood-and-leather Princess*, you could behave well enough to it, but now that you have a real flesh and blood woman, you none of you care for her.”

*Doll princess only said 4 “polite” things. Did Stepford Wives screenwriter read this 1877 story, or is the sad truth just that self-evident?

“These forests are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve that keeps back thebran. Then the princes get away to follow their fortunes. In this way, they have the advantage of princesses, who are forced to marry before they have a it of fun. I wish our princesses got lost in a forest sometimes.”

“‘It is a good thing to be light-hearted, I am sure…’ ‘It is a bad thing to be light-headed,’ answered the queen… ‘Tis a good thing to be light-handed,’ said the king. ‘Tis a bad thing to be light-fingered’…’it is a good thing altogether to be light-bodied.’ ‘But it is a bad thing altogether to be light-minded,’ retorted the queen, who was beginning to lose her temper.”