Every Version of that Chesterton Quotation about Fairy Tales and Slaying Dragons
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, writing the original lines, in Tremendous Trifles, Book XVII: The Red Angel (1909)
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One of the great popular novelists of the early part of this century was G.K. Chesterton. Writing at a time when fairy tales were under attack for pretty much the same reason as books can now be covertly banned in some schools because they have the word ‘witch’ in the title, he said: “The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed.”
~ Terry Pratchett — getting the spirit of it right, but technically misquoting Chesterton — in When the Children Read Fantasy, published in SF2 Concatenation (1994)
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“Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” - G.K. Chesterton, writer
~ Neil Gaiman (neil-gaiman) — getting the spirit of it right, but technically misquoting Chesterton — in Coraline (2002)
It’s my fault. When I started writing Coraline, I wrote my version of the quote [from] Tremendous Trifles, meaning to go back later and find the actual quote, as I didn’t own the book, and this was before the Internet. And then ten years went by before I finished the book, and in the meantime I had completely forgotten that the Chesterton quote was mine and not his.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Fairy tales do not tell children dragons exist. Children already know the dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”
~ Andi Bushell — getting the spirit of it right, but technically misquoting Chesterton — in Criminal Minds; Season 3, Episode 5, Seven Seconds (October 24th, 2007)
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