#tales

...; the chipped plates might have been disinterred from some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and the chops recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly to one's mind the night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first rudiments of cookery from his dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of sticks... ↗

— Joseph Conrad

#primeval-man #tales-of-the-sea #age

The one test of the really weird (story) is simply this--whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim. ↗

— H.P. Lovecraft

#weird-tales #writing #attitude

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#inspirational #beauty

Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#beauty

Beware a kiss, he told her. Kisses are powerful things. You expose part of your soul. ↗

— Ruth Frances Long

#fantasy #kisses #beauty

Once we have accepted the story we cannot escape the story's fate. ↗

— P.L. Travers

#fairytales #sleeping-beauty #beauty

And without further argument he unsheathed the sword and cleaved Miss Foxe's head from her neck. He knew what was supposed to happen. He knew that this awkward, whispering creature before him should now transform into a princess - dazzlingly beautiful, free, and made wise by her hardship. That is not what happened. ↗

— Helen Oyeyemi

#reality-sucks #beauty

The fairy tale is not the conclusion, but the doorway to a more brilliant reality. Pushed onto a pedestal as the final answer their worth is misshapen and distorted. The world’s story may end with a couple living happily ever after but our life in Christ enables the intimacy of the human relationship to illuminate an eternal perfection. In a balanced perspective, neither denigrated nor exalted from their intended place, fairy tales are a lovely and exhilarating part of life. ↗

— Natalie Nyquist

#fairy-tales #beauty

But this is a story, and in a story there is always someone beautiful enough." - 'The Girl with Two Skins' from A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#beauty

And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts. ↗

— Emma Donoghue

#fairy-tales-for-adults #love #perceptions #beauty