"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
~ Philippians 4:8
"It is the province of literature as a fine art to give the reader an immediate experience of the beautiful. The crowning good sought in teaching literature in the Catholic school is to give the student a vital experience of the beauty of full Christian living. There is insistent need for thorough study and appreciation of literature that imparts this authentic literary experience in which life at every level is seen vibrant with divine significance."
~ Printed inside the front cover of The Song at the Scaffold by Gertrud Von Le Fort, published by Neumann Press
"When life is no longer a miracle, goodness loses its purity, truth is deprived of its divine authority, and beauty loses its glory."
~ Mitchell Kalpakgian, The Mysteries of Life in Children's Literature
"Homer is new this morning, and perhaps nothing is as old as today's newspaper."
~ Charles Peguy
"The devil is fighting with God and the battlefield is the human heart."
~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
"I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story."
~ C.S. Lewis
"Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but 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."
~ G.K. Chesterton, "The Dragon's Grandmother"
"Fairy tales lead us toward a belief in something that if it were not also so veiled in a mystery, common sense alone would affirm: if there is a story, there must surely also be a storyteller."
~ Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue
"Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers."
~ Hans Christian Andersen
"This great idea, then, is the backbone of all folk-lore - the idea that all happiness hangs on one thin veto."
~ G.K. Chesterton
"A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way... You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate."
~ Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
"Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon."
~ G.K. Chesterton, "The Red Angel"