Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. They already know that dragons exist. Fairy Tales tell children that dragons can be killed.

Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

A man cannot deserve adventures; he cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs.

If you happen to read fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.

Can you not see, […] that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is-what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is-what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.

There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.