Andrew Lang Quotes

Young men, especially in America, write to me and ask me to recommend “a course of reading.” Distrust a course of reading! People who really care for books read all of them. There is no other course.

~ Andrew Lang

It takes all sorts to make a world,” some are soldiers from the cradle, some merchants, some orators; nothing but a love of books was the gift given to me by the fairies.

~ Andrew Lang

Again, if there are really no fairies, why do people believe in them, all over the world? The ancient Greeks believed, so did the old Egyptians, and the Hindoos, and the Red Indians, and is it likely, if there are no fairies, that so many different peoples would have seen and heard them?

~ Andrew Lang

In literature, as in love, one can only speak for himself.

~ Andrew Lang

Why should I laugh?' asked the old man. 'Madness in youth is true wisdom. Go, young man, follow your dream, and if you do not find the happiness that you seek, at any rate you will have had the happiness of seeking it.

~ Andrew Lang

But the three hundred and sixty-five authors who try to write new fairy tales are very tiresome. They always begin with a little boy or girl who goes out and meets the fairies of polyanthuses and gardenias and apple blossoms: 'Flowers and fruits, and other winged things.' These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they try to preach, and succeed.

~ Andrew Lang

It is so delightful to teach those one loves!

~ Andrew Lang

I fear nothing when I am doing right,' said Jack.'Then,' said the lady in the red cap, 'you are one of those who slay giants.

~ Andrew Lang

Madame d'Aulnoy is the true mother of the modern fairy tale. She invented the modern Court of Fairyland, with its manners, its fairies, its queens, its amorous, its cruel, its good, its evil, its odious, its friendly fées.

~ Andrew Lang

And then they lived happily, and we who hear the story are happier still.

~ Andrew Lang

And the old woman who had been the prince’s nurse became nurse to the prince’s children — at least she was called so; though she was far too old to do anything for them but love them. Yet she still thought that she was useful, and knew that she was happy. And happy, indeed, were the prince and princess, who in due time became king and queen, and lived and ruled long and prosperously.

~ Andrew Lang

...remember that the danger that is most to be feared is never the danger we are most afraid of.

~ Andrew Lang

...she has been bewitched by a wicked sorceress, and will not regain her beauty until she is my wife.''Does she say so? Well if you believe that you may drink cold water and think it bacon'.

~ Andrew Lang

Life's more amusing than we thought.

~ Andrew Lang