A Treasure Trove of Fairy Quotes by Whimsical & Nostalgia

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Once upon a time, I thought faeries lived only in books, old folktales, and the past. That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant, luminous beings, permeating my art and my everyday existence, causing glorious havoc.

~Brian Froud

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

~William Butler Yeats, "The Land of Heart's Desire," 1894

There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies.
~Richard Dawkins

Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.
~Joyce Kilmer

Fairies are invisible and inaudible like angels. But their magic sparkles in nature.
~Lynn Holland

They hold their great balls in the open air, in what is called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates.
~James Matthew Barrie

The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.
~Joyce Kilmer

And as the seasons come and go, here's something you might like to know. There are fairies everywhere: under bushes, in the air, playing games just like you play, singing through their busy day. So listen, touch, and look around - in the air and on the ground. And if you watch all nature's things, you might just see a fairy's wing.
~ Author Unknown

If we open our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
~ Samuel Smiles

Spread your wings and let the fairy in you fly!
~Author Unknown

If you choose to provide shelter for the fae, you will be amply rewarded for your kindness to them, for the world today does not often honor their olde world way and quite often they are shunned as mere pretend. The faeries will never forget your kind thoughts and gestures. They will stay and stay and grow strong from it.
~Cindy

Through the years I have grown very fond of the subject matter that I paint., It is as real to me as life itself. Even now, as I sit here and write, the studio elves and faeries are cleaning my brushes and leaving fairy footprints all over my palette. Yes, faeries are as real as you and me, you only have to open your mind and use your imagination.
~James Browne, Artist

To open your heart to the fairies, you must nurture these feelings of wonder, reverence and love for every detail of your garden, for the airs which blow about it, the musical rain which falls gently upon it, the moon and the stars which silently look down on it, the great sun which is the source of its being and for the clouds and changing skies which provide it with a canopy. When you truly feel the sweetness of this magic, you will begin to discover the fairies, for they will make themselves know to you.
~ Claire Nahmad

Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams.
~Douglas Jerrold

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us the dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
~F. K. Chesterton

If you want your children to be brilliant, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be geniuses, read them more fairy tales.
~Albert Einstein

The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.
~W. H. Auden

"Just living is not enough" said the butterfly fairy, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
~ Hans Christian Anderson

Where there is Joy, Laughter and Color, Fairies will be found!
~Author Unknown

The longing of my heart is a fairy portrait of myself: I want to be pretty; I want to eliminate facts and fill up the gap with charms.
~Mark Twain

The fairies break their dances
And leave the printed lawn.
~A.E. Housman

Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary, and dungeons for the overbold.
~J.R.R. Tolkein

The myths and legends about Faerie are many and diverse, and often contradictory. Only one thing is certain - that nothing is certain. All things are possible in the land of Faerie.
~Brian Froud

When the winds of March are wakening the crocuses and crickets,
Did you ever find a fairy near some budding little thickets,...
And when she sees you creeping up to get a closer peek
She tumbles through the daffodils, a playing hide and seek.
~Marjorie Barrows

Know you what it is to be a child?...It is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear, it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul.
~Francis Thompson

Every time a child says, "I don't believe in fairies," there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
~James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden.
~Rose Fyleman

Fairy roses, fairy rings, turn out sometimes troublesome things.
~W.M.Thackeray

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.
~Neil Gaiman

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
~William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child"

A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, said to me, that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer has passed onward: a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "

We the Fairies, blithe and antic,
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Though the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.
~Thomas Randolph

Each fairy breath of summer, as it blows with loveliness, inspires the blushing rose.
~Author Unknown

No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies.
~Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays in The Art of Writing

The wall is silence, the grass is sleep,
Tall trees of peace their vigil keep,
And the Fairy of Dreams with moth-wings furled
Plays soft on her flute to the drowsy world.
~Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

We call them faerie. We don't believe in them. Our loss.
~Charles de Lint

And as the seasons come and go, here's something you might like to know. There are fairies everywhere: under bushes, in the air, playing games just like you play, singing through their busy day. So listen, touch, and look around - in the air and on the ground. And if you watch all nature's things, you might just see a fairy's wing.
~Author Unknown

The Realm of Fairy is a strange shadow land, lying just beyond the fields we know.
~Author Unknown

Blind folk see the fairies.
Oh, better far than we,
Who miss the shining of their wings
Because our eyes are filled with things
We do not wish to see.
~Rose Fyleman

A rustle in the wind reminds us a fairy is near.
~Author Unknown

I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?
~John Lennon

Soft moss a downy pillow makes, and green leaves spread a tent,
Where Faerie fold may rest and sleep until their night is spent.
The bluebird sings a lullaby, the firefly gives a light,
The twinkling stars are candles bright, Sleep, Faeries all, Good Night.
~Elizabeth T. Dillingham, "A Faery Song"

Wind chimes in your yard will serenade garden creatures - squirrels, fairies and angels.
~Author Unknown

There never was a merry world since the fairies left off dancing, and the Parson left conjuring.
~John Selden, "Parson," Table Talk, 1689

Any man can lose his hat in a fairy-wind.
~Irish Saying

Garden fairies come at dawn,
Bless the flowers then they're gone.
~Author Unknown

If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
~Samuel Smiles

When I sound the fairy call,
Gather here in silent meeting,
Chin to knee on the orchard wall,
Cooled with dew and cherries eating.
Merry, merry, Take a cherry
Mine are sounder, Mine are rounder
Mine are sweeter, For the eater
When the dews fall. And you'll be fairies all.
~Robert Graves, "Cherry-Time," Fairies and Fusiliers, 1918

Oh! where do fairies hide their heads,
When snow lies on the hills,
When frost has spoiled their mossy beds,
And crystallized their rills?
~Thomas Haynes Bayly

I think that people who can't believe in fairies aren't worth knowing.
~Tori Amos

And though you should live in a palace of gold, or sleep in a dried up ditch,
You could never be as poor as the fairies are, and never as rich.
~Rose Fyleman

Angels, pixies, faerie dust
Treading love and living lust.
~Jaesse Tyler

Buttercups in the sunshine look like little cups of gold.

Perhaps the Faeries come to drink the raindrops that they hold.
~Elizabeth T. Dillingham, "A Faery Song"

Raindrops are like fairy whispers.
~Author Unknown

The little Plumpuppets are fairies of beds;
They have nothing to do but watch sleepyheads;
They turn down the sheets and they tuck you in tight,
And dance on your pillow to wish you good night!
~Christopher Morley

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve; lovers to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
~William Shakespeare

Deaf folk hear the fairies
However soft their song;
'Tis we who lose the honey sound
Amid the clamor all around
That beats the whole day long.
~Rose Fyleman

I'll seek a four-leaved shamrock in all thy fairy dells,
And if I find the charmed leaves, oh, how I'll weave my spells!
~Samuel Lover

Come cuddle close in daddy's coat
Beside the fire so bright,
And hear about the fairy folk
That wander in the night.
~Robert Bird

Are those the magic fairy wands
glistening on the tree
or only winter icicles that I see?
~Author Unknown

When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl. ~James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan

Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this place.
~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Deep within the winter forest among the snowdrift wide
You can find a magic place where all the fairies hide....
~Author Unknown

It's easy to believe in magic when you're young. Anything you couldn't explain was magic then. It didn't matter if it was science or a fairy tale. Electricity and elves were both infinitely mysterious and equally possible - elves probably more so.
~Charles de Lint

The fairies went from the world, dear,
Because men's hearts grew cold:
And only the eyes of children see
What is hidden from the old...
~Kathleen Foyle