Once Upon a Wardrobe Quotes

“Reason is how we get to the truth, but imagination is how we find meaning.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“I’d believed— fool that I was— that because I knew this end was coming, I was prepared, that I would not grieve as I had. As if one can pre-grieve and get it out of the way. It’s not true. Grief is the price I paid for loving fiercely, and that was okay, because there was no other choice but to love fiercely and fully.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“The fantastic and the imaginative aren't escapism . . . Good stories introduce the marvelous. The whole story, paradoxically, strengthens our relish for real life. This excursion sends us back with renewed pleasure to the actual world. It provides meaning. . . It takes us out of ourselves and lets us view reality from new angles. It expands our awareness of the world.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Every life should be guided and enriched by one book or another, don’t you agree? Certainly, every formative moment in my life has been enriched or informed by a book. You must be very careful about what you choose to read— unless you want to stay stuck in your opinions and hard-boiled thoughts, you must be very careful.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“The way stories change us can't be explained,' Padraig says. 'It can only be felt. Like love.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Stars are made of dust and nitrogen; they are balls of gas and hydrogen. But that isn’t what a star is; it’s only what it is made of.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Maybe we are each and every one of us born with our own stories, and we must decide how to tell those stories with our own life, or in a book . . . Or could it be that all our stories come from one larger story?”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“...by now he understood that all books worth loving were worth rereading over and over.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Once upon a wardrobe, not very long ago and not far away,”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Every human interaction is eternally important.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“For a breath or two, I wonder about this magical world we live in. It’s a mystery we can never understand. For a moment, a small and breath-holding moment, I know it to be true: there is more, something more I can’t see, a vivid truth that can’t be described by logic or words alone, a truth that delights the heart.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“With stories, I can see with other eyes, imagine with other imaginations, feel with other hearts, as well as with my own. Stories aren’t equations.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Some babies are born closer to the end of their story than others, and this little boy was one of those.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Good stories introduce the marvelous. The whole story, paradoxically, strengthens our relish for real life. This excursion sends us back with renewed pleasure to the actual world. It provides meaning.” “Yes,” Warnie says. “It takes us out of ourselves and lets us view reality from new angles. It expands our awareness of the world.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“During those long afternoon walks in nature he came to believe that one must shut the mouth and open the eyes and ears, for nature only asked of him to look, listen, and attend.”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“So many bad things happen.” “Yes, they do and always will, and yet, all will be well.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Every life should be guided and enriched by one book or another, don’t you agree? Certainly, every formative moment in my life has been enriched or informed by a book. You must be very careful about what you choose to read—unless you want to stay stuck in your opinions and hard-boiled thoughts, you must be very careful.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“The fantastic and the imaginative aren’t escapism.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“I know you think the whole world is held together by some math formula.” His voice has an unaccustomed annoyance in it. “But I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think the world is held together by stories, not all those equations you stare at.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“says. “George knows you can take the bad parts in a life, all the hard and dismal parts, and turn them into something of beauty. You can take what hurts and aches and perform magic with it so it becomes something else, something that never would have been, except you make it so with your spells and stories and with your life.”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Yards out past the cliffs, the sea thrashes the jagged and steep rocks with all its might, then retreats, only to try again. These broken walls and half crumbled towers had been seen by a young boy named Jack, who turned it into a magical place where goodness and love conquered winter, and a lion rose from the dead, and four children unexpectedly sat on royal thrones.”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“I don’t know the right answer to anything these days.”

“Neither do I, Mum. I don’t know if anyone does. Only math problems seem to have right and wrong answers, far as I can tell lately.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Like I said, everything began with images: a faun… At first there wasn’t even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord. And archetypes, he says. You know about those?

p 217”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Megs, every human interaction is eternally important.”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Is he...God?" I ask outright the question I've been thinking. This is what I want to tell George: Aslan is God; all is well. There is a place where things are made right and good again. There is hope.
"That is the question I get all the time. What I did when crafting this tale, Miss Devonshire, was to suppose that there was another world, and God entered it in a different way than he did here on earth. And so there you have Aslan. It's a supposal, if you will.”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“That's when it happens, as if has never happened to me before when reading a story: time falls away as it it doesn't exist at all, as if the cosmos holds still while I read. As if it waits for me to read this story.
And maybe it does.”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Miss Devonshire," Mr. Lewis says and looks out the window as if what he wants to say dances in that dormant winter garden. "The fantastic and the imaginative aren't escapism."
"How so?" This seems important.
"Good stories introduce the marvelous. The whole story, paradoxically, strengthens our relish for real life. This excursion sends us back with renewed pleasure to the actual world. It provides meaning."
"Yes," Warnie says. "It takes us out of ourselves and lets us view reality from new angles. It expands our awareness of the world."
The significance of these statements creates tingles on my arms and neck. I realize fantasy and imagination aren't just for escape. And to dismiss them is absurd.”
― Patti Callahan Henry, Once Upon a Wardrobe

“Because even with the dark and the light parts and the good parts and the bad parts, dinner must still be served.”
― Patti Callahan, Once Upon a Wardrobe