Thoughts on { Fairy tales | G.K. Chesterton / Hans Christian Andersen

J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan – Illustration: Mai Mituric, 1971

“If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other–the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.”

G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936

“Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.”

Hans Christian Andersen, 1805-1875

“Can you not see,“ I said, “that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is—what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is—what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.”

G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936

Also:
Days [ ) Fairy Tales | Knut Hamsun, 1898
Days [ ) Fairy tales | Albert Einstein, 1879-1955