I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality - you're told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.
The naturalist worldview is a good way to feel grounded and feel part of something that isn't based on fairy tales. It's based on observable facts in the human and in the biological history of the planet. I think that can be a source for comfort.
As much as I'd like to meet the tooth fairy on an evening walk, I don't really believe it can happen.
I was born an only child in Vienna, Austria. My father found hours to sit by me by the library fire and tell fairy stories.
The same that oft-times hath charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.
Dracula: Absinthe is the aphrodisiac of the self. The green fairy who lives in the absinthe wants your soul. But you are safe with me.
Landlady: You may know kung fu... but you're still a fairy.
Barry the Baptist: Fucking northern monkeys! Lenny: I hate these fucking southern fairies!
Stepmother: She treats me like a wicked stepmother in a fairy story, no matter what I say.
We build our understanding of the emotional world through the myths and legends of our culture. We are all, in part, made of fairy tales.
The land of fairy, where nobody gets old and godly and grave, where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue
Two uniformed trolls were standing in front of Sergeant Colon's high desk, with a slightly smaller troll between them. This troll was wearing a slightly downcast expression. It was also wearing a tutu and had a small pair of gauzed wings glued to its...
I will tell you, too, that every fairy tale has a moral. The moral of my story may be that love is a constraint, as strong as any belt. And this is certainly true, which makes it a good moral. Or it may be that we are all constrained in some way, eit...
I believe that the great stretches of forests in northern Europe, with their constant seasonal changes, their restricted views, their astonish biological diversity, their secret gifts and perils and the knowledge that you have to go through them to g...
Have you ever been in a large forest and seen a strange black tarn hidden deep among the leaves? It looks bewitched and a little frightening. All is still — fir trees and pines huddle close and silent on all sides. Sometimes the trees bend cautious...
It must not be thought, however, that in pagan Ireland Fairyland was altogether conceived as a Hades or place of the dead. We have already seen that in some of its types and aspects it was inherently nothing of the sort; as when, for example, it came...
Do you believe in 'fairy tales'?" I asked, looking up into Lissa's eyes. "What . . . What kind of fairy tales?" "The kind you aren't supposed to waste your life on." [...] The question was: How long did I have to figure out if the impossible was actu...
Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies. In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against...
It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the re...
And fairy tales are make-believe. They are the stories we tell to small children to make them believe the world is a far better place than it really is.
