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Fable Quotes

Browse 64 quotes about Fable.

Fable Quotes

“With his pendulous penis swinging from side to side, the beast clip-clopped up a rickety flight of stairs led by Pablo Zapata's wife, who took him through a beaded curtain into a room where a bevy of sullen women reclined on tatty sofas. A collective gasp rang out among the group and many crossed themselves in silent prayer.”

“I hear the wind howlin' and roarin' like a freight train, and I know old Wally could be in for his last days. But I just kept my head down and prayed. Well, that tornado ripped me right up from the earth and sent me heavenbound, and I was swirled amongst the trees and the cows and houses and every imaginable thing. I held onto my banjo for dear life, and I began to sing and play and make the most of this terrible ride I found myself on. I suppose that tornado was soothed by my tune, because it soon slowed down, lowering me back to earth until I landed here.”

“We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, according to Charles Dickens in whose nest of words I grew up, and so, as rain filled the drains, flooded the streets, inundated the city, my great-great-great-great-grandmother and her community were driven skyward, gasping for air from the underworld.”

“Fable Town's door is set in a sprawling live oak whose knobby trunk rivals the size of the largest mausoleum in our cemetery-- I suppose the door has to be this large to fit a dragon, after all-- with a canopy of serpentine branches that extended like the wizened, swollen-knuckled fingers of a witch. The knots are so smooth to the touch that I know this tree must be hundreds of years old. Thousands, even. Maybe even the first tree to ever exist in the Hinterlands. For what is older than fables themselves? a voice whispers in my mind. Distant tinkles of laughter like fairy bells rustle the shimmering leaves. Everything about this tree whispers of ancient storybooks and steaming spicy tea and castle halls filled with lute music. A picture of an open storybook is carved into the door, along with words so timeworn that I have to trace them with my finger to read them. "Once... upon... a... time..." I recite aloud in a voice as breathy as a spell.”

“Such is the passage, x. 14, where, after giving an account that the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, at the command of Joshua, (a tale only fit to amuse children). This tale of the sun standing still upon Motint Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, is one of those fables that detects itself. Such a circumstance could not have happened without being known all over the world. One half would have wondered why the sun did not rise, and the other why it did not set; and the tradition of it would be universal; whereas there is not a nation in the world that knows anything about it.”

“In Gretons-sur-Mer, the villagers, through the auspicious care of the Bouletiers, returned to their human form. Sometimes they wondered, looking at their reflection on the surface of water or on the rounded shine of a pewter pitcher, if a part of them had remained beastly, if the whiskers atop their lips had been there before. They wondered, stroking the spot, and mused on their transformation, to that time of war when the fabric of life was briefly woven with magic.”

“Like Solon, Plato intended to write a long fable about legendary Atlantis; like Solon, he never did write it. Yet there existed beyond the Atlantic an unvisited land, after all, and it is more strange than any of Plato's myths that Plato's apprehension of order and justice should be a living influence among the people of that land, twenty-four centuries after the mystical philosopher's soul departed from Athens.”

“Truth came home one day, naked and wounded, having been beaten and cursed by the people who did not wish to hear, while his brother Falsehood went dressed in the brightest garments and feasted with every household. “What shall I do?” cried Truth to the gods. “No man wishes to hear me and all beat me and throw things at me; look, I am covered with dung.” “You are naked” said the goddess Maat, sympathetically. “No naked one can command respect. Therefore take these robes and you will walk without fear and all men will sit at your feet to hear your stories.” And she dressed Truth in Fable’s garments, and he was welcome at every house.”

“I just wish moments weren’t so fleeting!' Isaac called to the man on the roof, 'They pass so quickly!' 'Fleeting?!' responded the tilling man, 'Moments? They pass quickly?! . . . Why, once a man is finished growing, he still has twenty years of youth. After that, he has twenty years of middle age. Then, unless misfortune strikes, nature gives him twenty thoughtful years of old age. Why do you call that quickly?' And with that, the tilling man wiped his sweaty brow and continued tilling; and the dejected Isaac continued wandering. 'Stupid fool!' Isaac muttered quietly to himself as soon as he was far enough away not to be heard.”