Kate Morton Quotes

I kind of romanticized what it was like to be a writer and director when I was in my early twenties. Working as a production assistant knocked that right out of me.

Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

In the old fairy tales, often a 'moral' was tacked on at the end of the story - say, if a book was going to be marketed to young readers. And the morals don't really suit the stories at all, which makes them super weird - part of why I love the tradition so much. I do play with this, though I am more concerned with ethics than morals.

I'm not writing fairy tales or object lessons.

People idealize or reminisce about their 20s, but nobody tells you beforehand that it's hard and unglamorous and often very unpleasant.

If you look at children's stories in fairy tales, they're pretty brutal.

I think, reading the Grimm's fairy tales, they all have some sort of moral component to them, teaching you a lesson.

I had to grow up fast because we know it's not all fairy tales out there; it's full of rubbish.

Owen [Suskind], in a sense, grew up on a diet of myth and fable, and has become an expert on their themes, which contain a moral guide that connects people.

The bearers of fables are very welcome.

Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.

For some stories, it's easy. The moral of 'The Three Bears,' for instance, is "Never break into someone else's house.' The moral of 'Snow White' is 'Never eat apples.' The moral of World War I is 'Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.

We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high.

Illusions are bound to be shattered

Do you believe in fairy tales?" "What...what kind of fairy tales?" "The kind you aren't supposed to waste your life on.

Sometimes fairy stories may say best what's to be said.

This isn't a Christmas special! This is my life. In the real world, miracles and goodness just don't happen.

One of the basic motifs in fairy tales is that you find the poor and unfortunate along the side of the road, and when they beg for help, if you give it to them, you end up succeeding. If you don't give it to them, you end up being turned into a frog or something. It's something that's been around for thousands of years, a concept that's been around for thousands of years.

The U.S. that I had imagined was nowhere near as crazy and as incredibly damaging and brutal and indifferent as the U.S. that we're currently living in. I thought I was being transgressive, apocalyptic, an out-there person. And then reality lapped me, it just lapped me.

I learned life were no dream I learned truth deceived Man is not God Life is a century Death an instant

We’d met at a carefree time, a moment full of promise, in its place now were the harsh lessons of the real world.

In China there was once a man who liked pictures of dragons, and his clothing and furnishings were all designed accordingly. His deep affection for dragons was brought to the attention of the dragon god, and onde day a real dragon appeared before his window. It is said that he died of fright. He was probably a man who always spoke big words but acted differently when facing the real thing.

Science is a match that man has just got alight. He thought he was in a room - in moments of devotion, a temple - and that his light would be reflected from and display walls inscribed with wonderful secrets and pillars carved with philosophical systems wrought into harmony. It is a curious sensation, now that the preliminary splutter is over and the flame burns up clear, to see his hands and just a glimpse of himself and the patch he stands on visible, and around him, in place of all that human comfort and beauty he anticipated - darkness still.

Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.

What brings enlightenment is experience, in the sad sense of this word--the pressure of hard facts and unintelligible troubles, making a man rub his eyes in his waking dream, and put two and two together. Enlightenment is cold water.