Janni > Janni's Quotes

“And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are:

Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Farthest Shore

“There's lots of kinds of chains...You can't see most of them, the ones that bind folks together. But people build them, link by link. Sometimes the links are weak...That's another funny thing, now that I think of it. Sometimes when you mend a chain, the place where you fix it is strongest of all.”
― Bruce Coville, Into the Land of the Unicorns

“So he decided he would never listen to anybody he knew? That's just like someone in a fairy tale.'

Knowing he had given his trust amiss, how could he bestow it again?'

That's foolish. Did he expect never to make any mistakes?”
― Pamela Dean, The Whim of the Dragon

“So the Dark did a simple thing. They showed the maker of the sword his own uncertainty and fear. Fear of having done the wrong thing--fear that having done this one great thing, he would never again be able to accomplish anything of great worth--fear of age, of insufficiency, of unmet promise. All such great fears, that are the doom of people given the gift of making, and lie always somewhere in their minds.”
― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“If I hadn't learned my lesson, I would have wished we could stay there forever. But I knew better now. We'd seen what we'd come to see. The way to trick death. Breathe in. Breathe out. Watch as it all rises upwards, black and blue into the even bluer sky.”
― Alice Hoffman, The Ice Queen

“But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that darkness?' asked Drinian.

Use?' replied Reepicheep. 'Use, Captain?' If you mean by filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures. And here is as great an adventure as I have ever heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader”

“The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time: With Related Readings

“A child who can love the oddities of a fantasy book cannot possibly be xenophobic as an adult. What is a different color, a different culture, a different tongue for a child who has already mastered Elvish, respected Puddleglums, or fallen under the spell of dark-skinned Ged?”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood

“It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.”
― Carl Sagan

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“This is our world. Aye, there's more than enough of darkness in it. But over everything there's all this joy, Kit. There's all this lovely, lovely light.”
― David Almond, Kit's Wilderness

“Ride close together. Remember laughter. You'll need it even in the blessed isles of Ever After.”
― James Thurber, The 13 Clocks

“That's a sure way to tell about somebody--the way they play, or don't play, make-believe.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, Dragons in the Waters

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Will picked a single blossom from a gorse bush beside him; it shone bright yellow on his grubby hand. "People are very complicated," he said sadly.

"So they are," John Rowlands said. His voice deepened a little, louder and clearer than it had been. "But when the battles between you and your adversaries are done, Will Stanton, in the end the fate of all the world will depend on just those people, and on how many of them are good or bad, stupid or wise. And indeed it is all so complicated that I would not dare foretell what they will do with their world. Our world.”
― Susan Cooper

“If I am the pawn of the gods, it is because they know me so well, not because they make my mind up for me.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
― C.S. Lewis

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.”
― Lemony Snicket

“You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.”
― Hayao Miyazaki

“Blessed are the powers that grant me magic.
I promise to use their gift well.
To help mend my world.
To help mend all worlds.
And should I forget to mend,
Should I refuse to mend,
Still I will remember
To do no harm.”
― Janni Lee Simner, Faerie Winter

“Sometimes what we want or don't want doesn't matter in the end. Sometimes magic doesn't listen after all.”
― Janni Lee Simner, Bones of Faerie

“The thing about being an artist," Dad said, folding his newspaper and setting it down on the table, "is that there are always going to be people who want to stop you from doing your art. But this usually says more about them and their issues than it does about you and your art. Trust me.”
― Leila Sales, This Song Will Save Your Life