I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?

A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds.

It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.

I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon.

Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?

To think I should have lived to be goodmorninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!

No dragon can resist the fascination of riddling talk and of wasting time trying to understand it.