fairy quotes

By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung.

-William Collins
  'How Sleep the Brave' (published1748), no.2.

At the same moment a peculiar fragrance was borne upon the breeze, as if a passing fairy had hiccuped, and had previously been to a wine vaults.

- CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
^4  On Mrs Gamp's entering a room. Martin Chuzzlewit, ch.25.

That fairy kind of writing which depends only upon the force of imagination.

-John Dryden
King  Arthur, dedication.

All books are the Book of Job, high moral tests and tasks set in fairy tales, landmined and unforgiving as golf greens, as steeplechase and gameboard and obstacle course. 310

- Stanley Lawrence Elkin
  'The Future of the Novel', in the NewYork Times,17 Feb.

I am the ugliest fairy in the world, and I shall be till people behave themselves as they ought to do. And then I shall grow as handsome as my sister†Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby.

- Charles Kingsley
  Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid. The Water Babies, ch.5.

SoTomwent homewith Ellie†and heisnowa great man of science†and knows everything about everything, except whya hen's egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little things which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. And all this fromwhat helearnt whenhewas awater-baby, underneaththesea. 'And of course,Tom married Ellie?'My dear child, what a silly notion! Don't you know that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under the rank of a prince or a princess?

- Charles Kingsley
  The Water Babies, ch.8.

Airy, fairy Lilian.

-Tennyson
  Poems,'Lilian', l.1.

The whole fleet's lit up.When I say 'lit up',I mean by fairy lamps.

-Thomas Woodroofe
  BBC radio commentary of the Spithead review, 20 May, Britain's first live outside broadcast.'Lit up' was a common euphemism for 'drunk'.