f there’s one thing I love reading, it’s an inspirational quote, so this week I’ve decided to collate some of the best quotes from fantasy authors.
They’re an eclectic mix, but hopefully they’ll give you the inspiration you need to achieve your goals, or simply give you a better idea of what’s going on in an author’s mind. I know I always look to well-established fantasy authors if I’m in a slump, so sit back, grab a drink and enjoy!
“I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.” – Stephen King
“A learning experience is one of those things that says, ‘you know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.’” – Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it.” ― Lloyd Alexander
“The thing to remember when you’re writing is, it’s not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It’s whether it wakes a truth in your reader.” ― Charles de Lint, The Blue Girl
“There is a rule for fantasy writers: The more truth you mix in with a lie, the stronger it gets.” ― Diane Duane
“We are as ignorant of the meaning of the dragon as we are of the meaning of the universe.” ― Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings
“I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.” ― Kate Forsyth
“Anyone who claimed that old age had brought them patience was either lying or senile.” ― Robert Jordan
“If there is one sound the follows the march of humanity, it is the scream.” ― David Gemmel
“There are a number of paths that lead to this place. I have been avoiding them for some small time, now.” ― Neil Gaiman, Brief Lives
“This is, in part, why there is less magic in the world today. Magic is secret and secrets are magic, after all, and years upon years of teaching and sharing magic and worse. Writing it down in fancy books that get all dusty with age has lessened it, removed its power bit by bit.” ― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
“Never practice magic when you’re drunk.” ― Assaph Mehr, Murder In-Absentia
“The best way to show people true things is from a direction that they had not imagined the truth coming.” ― Neil Gaiman
“Rise like the hero you were born to be, or die the slave you think you are.” ― Michael Joseph Murano, Age of the Seer
“All the friends in the world are in the fountain of a pen.” ― Michelle Franklin
“This is for everyone who has ever looked at the stars, or gazed from atop a hill, or across the sea and wondered…” ― Tim Perkins, Worlds End: The Riders On The Storm
“Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible.” ― Rod Serling
“After all, history is a type of fantasy. For all the primary source research, in the end, the past world the historian builds is as weird and remote from our own as Middle Earth or Narnia, yet oddly familiar.” ― Ysabeau S. Wilce, Flora Fyrdraaca
“Respect is a really powerful magic too, you know.” ― Jefferson Smith, Strange Places
“The incalculable winds of fantasy and music and poetry, the mere face of a girl, the song of a bird, or the sight of a horizon, are always blowing evil’s whole structure away.” ― C.S. Lewis
“That kind of imagination is why we’re not dead.” ― Rebecca McKinsey, Anterria
“Fantasy – the ability to envisage the world in many different ways – is one of the skills that makes us human.” ― Terry Pratchett
“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” ― Francisco de Goya
“Always.” – J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
So there you go, a round up of my favourite 25 inspiration quotes from fantasy authors. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them, and they’ve given you some inspiration.
But I’ve got one last question for you, what’s your favourite fantasy author quote?
It could be from an interview they’ve done, it could be from a novel you’ve read recently. I’d love to hear your thoughts, so make sure you let me know in the comments below.
If social media’s more your thing, then make sure you connect with me on Instagram, Twitter or via my free newsletter. I’ll keep you updated on the progress of my fantasy and science-fiction novels, which I’m currently in the process of editing and writing respectively.
Speak to you soon!
