"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one."
— Terry Pratchett

"I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"So you do believe in... true love? she whispered.
I took a deep breath, I think I have to, I said, blinking back tears. Without it, we're all going nowhere."
— Juliet Marillier (Wildwood Dancing)

"He's not safe, but he's good (referring to Aslan, the Lion, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)"
— C.S. Lewis

"Motherhood is always emotional, even for you souls."
— Stephenie Meyer (The Host)

"Who would you be but who you are?"
— Terry Brooks (The Black Unicorn)

"All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But... I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers)

"Shall we dance,friend of my heart?

We shall, little one.

-from Eldest: Chapter Title: The Storm Breaks"
— Christopher Paolini

"'Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.'"
— Jane Yolen (The Books of Great Alta: Comprising 'Sister Light, Sister Dark' and 'White Jenna')

"People should decide on the books' meanings for themselves. They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence."
— Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials Trilogy: The Golden Compass / The Subtle Knife / The Amber Spyglass)

""We're living in momentous times, Garion. The events of a thousand years and more have all focused on these very days. The world, I'm told, is like that. Centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again."
"I think that if I had my choice, I'd prefer one of those quiet centuries," Garion said glumly.
"Oh, no," Silk said, his lips drawing back in a ferretlike grin. "Now's the time to be alive - to see it all happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure." "
— David Eddings

"Phnglui mglw nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah nagl fhtagn"
— H.P. Lovecraft

"We're free Narnians, Hwin and I, and I suppose, if you're running away to Narnia you want to be one too. In that case Hwin isn't your horse any longer. One might just as well say you're her human."
— C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia)

""Let'sss just kill him," said the shorter Ra'zac. "He has caused us much grief."
The taller one ran his finger down his sword. "A good plan. But remember, the king's instructions were to keep them alive."

-from Eragon, Chapter Title: The Ra'zac's Revenge."
— Christopher Paolini

"Fantasy is one of the soul's brighter porcelains."
— Pat Conroy (Beach Music)

"...only in the surrender of the light (can) the darkness prevail.

King of the Murgos, pg 26"
— David Eddings

"A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labour, and in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man's distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: 'This tower is most interesting.' But they also said (after pushing it over): 'What a muddle it is in!' And even the man's own descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: 'He is such an odd fellow! Imagine using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did not he restore the old house? he had no sense of proportion.' But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (Beowulf and the Critics)

"Rhett: If you've made up your mind to impale someone, do it with conviction."
— Rowena Cherry (Knight's Fork)

"Dovie'andi se tovya sagain!
"
— Robert Jordan

"What in the blue star-blazes did you see in Jason?" he asked, still forcefully but with his frustration and jealousy under better control.

"For one thing, Djetth, he wasn't trying to kill me!"

("Marsh", heroine of Insufficient Mating Material)"
— Rowena Cherry (Insufficient Mating Material)

"Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. just so a Party-spokesman might have labeled departure from the misery of the Fuhrer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery .... Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the "quisling" to the resistance of the patriot. (On Fairy-Stories)"
— J.R.R. Tolkien

""I'll never forget the first time Davram took me by the scruff of my neck and showed me he was the stronger of us. It was magnificent! If a woman is stronger than her husband, she comes to despise him. She has the choice of either tyrannizing him or else making herself less in order not to make him less. If the husband is strong enough, though, she can be as strong as she is, as strong as she can grow to be."

"
— Robert Jordan

"If you neglected to warn Djetth beforehand that you were going to shoot him down, Your Highness, he may consider you in breach of contract...

-- Rhett"
— Rowena Cherry (Insufficient Mating Material)

"'Garion,' she said very calmly, 'the universe knew your name before that moon up there was spun out of the emptiness. Whole constellations have been waiting for you since the beginning of time.'
'I didn't want them to, Aunt Pol.'
'There are those of us who aren't given that option, Garion. There are things that gave to be done and certain people who have to do them. It's as simple as that.'
He smiled rather sadly at her flawless face and gently touched the snowy white lock at her brow. Then, for the last time in his life, he asked the question that had been on his lips since he was a tiny boy. 'Why me, Aunt Pol? Why me?'
'Can you possibly think of anyone else you'd trust to deal with these matters, Garion?'
He had not really been prepared for that question. It came at him in stark simplicity. Now at last he fully understood. 'No,' he sighed, 'I suppose not. Somehow it seems a little unfair, though. I wasn't even consulted.'
'Neither was I, Garion,' she answered. 'But we didn't have to be consulted, did we? The knowledge of what we have to do is born into us.'"
— David Eddings (Sorceress of Darshiva)

"Sarcasm, as it turned out--even when it was instinctive and quick--cut into the time one had to manufacture one's escape."
— Mel Odom (The Destruction of the Books)

"It takes real planning to organize this kind of chaos."
— Mel Odom (The Destruction of the Books)

"If there is one sound the follows the march of humanity, it is the scream."
— David Gemmell

"If there are things you know are there that you can't see, then might there not also be things you don't know are there that you can't see? "
— Nakor, from Feist's The King's Buccanner

"Zakath stared at the floor. 'I suddenly feel very helpless,' he admitted, 'and I don't like the feeling. I've been rather effectively dethroned, you know. This morning I was the Emperor of the largest nation on earth; this afternoon, I'm going to be a vagabond.'
'You might find it refreshing,' Silk told him lightly.
'Shut up, Kheldar,' Zakath said almost absently. He looked back at Polgara. 'You know something rather peculiar?'
'What's that?'
'Even if I hadn't given my word, I'd still have to go to Kell. It's almost like a compulsion. I feel as if I'm being driven, and my driver is a blindfolded girl who's hardly more than a child.'
'There are rewards,' she told him.
'Such as what?'
'Who knows? Happiness, perhaps.'
He laughed ironically. 'Happiness has never been a driving ambition of mine, Lady Polgara, not for a long time now.'
'You may have to accept it anyway,' She smiled. 'We aren't allowed to choose our rewards any more than we are our tasks. Those decisions are made for us.'

Sorceress of Darshiva, pgs 284-285"
— David Eddings

"The Worst thing that Good could do to Evil was ignore it..."
— Michael Bialys

"Write me a creature that thinks as well as a man or better than a man, but not like a man."
— John Wood Campbell Jr.

"The deer hovered by the trees beyond as the sounds of the ravening wolves came to them across the grass, their own senses almost frozen in impotent horror."
— David Clement-Davies

""If the president and the Vice President dies who becomes President" "Thats easy Arnold Swartzanager""
— Dan Gutman

"~:.*.:~~:.*.:~May the magic always brighten your world~:.*.:~~:.*.:~
"
— Sheri L. McGathy

""...What does the blessing of heaven mean? We know the kirin is just an animal, not a mythical creature."
"It has become a symbol now.... That is the way human beings deal with the world.""
— Lian Hearn (The Harsh Cry of the Heron: The Last Tale of the Otori)

"Do you get the same peace of mind that I do when you're causing random damage? Especially random, senseless, mindless damage that serves no real purpose. That's my favorite kind, you know! That's the best!"
— Robin Wayne Bailey (Dragonkin, Volume 3: Undersky)

"'Perfection is death,' Anastasia said. 'The world is imperfect, but if it weren't, who would love it?'"
— Michael Swanwick