Tale Quotes - page 3

The boat dipped and swayed and sometimes took on water, but it did not sink; the two brothers had waterproofed it well. I do not know where it finally fetched up, if it ever did; perhaps it reached the sea and sails there forever like a magic boat in a fairytale. All I know is that it was still afloat and still running on the breast of the flood when it passed the incorporated town limits of Derry, Maine, and there it passes out of this tale forever. (Stephen King)
A tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid.
Anatole France
The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth.
William Golding
Prostrate on earth the bleeding warrior lies, And Isr'el's beauty on the mountains dies. How are the mighty fallen! Hush'd be my sorrow, gently fall my tears, Lest my sad tale should reach the alien's ears: Bid Fame be dumb, and tremble to proclaim In heathen Gath, or Ascalon, our shame Lest proud Philistia, lest our haughty foe, With impious scorn insult our solemn woe.
William Somervile
O sleep, we are beholden to thee, sleep, Thou bearest angels to us in the night, Saints out of heaven with palms. Seen by thy light Sorrow is some old tale that goeth not deep; Love is a pouting child.
Jean Ingelow
I'd imagine my wedding as a fairy tale... huge, beautiful and white.
Paris Hilton
I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees.
Kurt Vonnegut
I am your fairy tale. Your dream. Your wishes and desires, and I am your thirst and your hunger and your food and your drink.
Klaus Kinski
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed ... History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren't realized... So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Henry Kissinger
Why cover the same ground again? ... It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly. (Homer)
Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
William Shakespeare
Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
William Shakespeare
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
American literature was enriched with Men Who Loved Allison.... Of the actual and eventual worth of this romance I cannot pretend to be an unprejudiced judge. The tale seems to me one of those many books which have profited, very dubiously indeed, by having obtained, in one way of another, the repute of being indecent.
James Branch Cabell
The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth.
Leo Tolstoy
England was merry England, when Old Christmas brought his sports again. ‘Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale; ‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the year.
Walter Scott
And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.
John Milton
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine.
John Milton
To know, to esteem, to love, and then to part, Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
You can think of my films as cautionary tales, but you might even think of them as despairing tales, because at least in a cautionary tale, you have this idea that by listening to the story you can assure a better outcome. Whereas I'm not at all convinced that's the case. In fact, if anything, I'm convinced that it's the opposite. (Errol Morris)
Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.
Dara Ó Briain
It could have been like a fairy tale. But fairy tales aren't real. Things don't work like that. There's a price for everything.
Maureen Johnson
And in what fairy tale would John ever be any sane person's idea of Prince Charming anyway? He was the opposite of charming. More like Prince Terrifying.
Meg Cabot
To me, a fairy tale seems to have become reality.
Nelly Sachs