A Quote by J. R. R. Tolkien

And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Quote Topics

Any Ending Fond Guess Happy Kind Know May People Real Sad Take Tale Them Want Way

Quote Author

J. R. R. Tolkien
English - Writer
January 3, 1892 - September 2, 1973

I don't know that I think women have to throw out the fairy tale ending. I just think they have to decide what their fairy tale ending is - and not go with the standard one that everyone's told them they're supposed to have.

Shonda Rhimes

And the story of love is a long sad tale ending in graves.

Jack Kerouac

The ending has to fit. The ending has to matter, and make sense. I could care less about whether it's happy or sad or atomic. The ending is the place where you go, “Aha. Of course. That's right.”

Carrie Jones

This was not a fairy-tale castle and there was no such thing as a fairy-tale ending, but sometimes you could threaten to kick the handsome prince in the ham-and-eggs.

Terry Pratchett

Whether histories have a happy ending or not depends on when the chronicler ends the tale.

Linda Gordon

I can't really write anything without knowing the ending. I don't know how people do that. Even with my superhero stuff, I have to know at least where I want to take the characters and what the ending of my story with them will be. I just can't structure stories or character arcs and stuff without knowing the endpoint.

Jeff Lemire

He used to talk to me about Russia all the time and had sworn up and down that I'd love it here. "To you, it'd be like a fairy tale," he'd told me. "Sorry, comrade. Borg and out-of-date music aren't part of any happy ending I've ever imagined." "Borscht, not borg. And I've seen your appetite. If you were hungry enough, you'd eat it." "So starvation's necessary for this fairy tale to work out?

Richelle Mead

Each of us may think we know exactly what we need to make us happy, what will be good for us, what will ensure we have our happy ending, but life rarely works out in the way we expect, and our happy ending may have all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, be shaped in all sorts of unexpected ways

Jane Green

There's a reason a happy ending is called an ending. The trick of a television storyteller is to find all the rivers and mountains and valleys on the way to that ending.

Julie Plec

I always had this idea that you should never give up a happy middle in the hopes of a happy ending, because there is no such thing as a happy ending. Do you know what I mean? There is so much to lose.

John Green

- the only difference between a happy ending and a sad ending is where you decide the story ends.

Andrew Kaufman

And I thought, when I have kids, that's the sort of well told, silly, and fun fairy tale that I would want to take them to. But it was an amazing experience. And I think Shrek is a real classic, a fairy tale classic.

Mike Myers

I've been with the project for like three years: creating it, pushing it. [There] becomes a certain doubt when you're pitching this story to people. ["The Land" is] a cautionary tale. It's not the brightest or best ending to a film when you're telling a cautionary tale about four kids, kids who are killing each other, kids who are products of the streets.

Steven Caple Jr.

Tell me a story, Pew. What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There’s no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending.

Jeanette Winterson

The artist usually sets out -- or used to -- to point a moral and adorn a tale. The tale, however, points the other way, as a rule. Two blankly opposing morals, the artist's and the tale's. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper functions of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.