WIST Quotations

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)

Dave — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:20:24 +0000

You have the effrontery to be squeamish, it thought at him. But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless, and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape — the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes — we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Discworld No. 8, Guards! Guards! (1989)

The dragon mentally speaking to Wonse.

Tolkien, J.R.R. -- (Misattributed)

Dave — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 16:11:05 +0000

It’s simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
(Misattributed)

Variant: "It simply isn’t an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons."

Actually found in Sara Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance, "February 16: At the End of Our Exploring" (2005). Breathnach quotes an actual Tolkien warning about dragons earlier on the page, apparently leading people to misattribute this phrase of hers to Tolkien.

More discussion: Not a Tolkien quote: It simply isn't an adventure worth telling if there aren't any dragons - thetolkienist.com.

Gaiman, Neil -- Coraline (2002)

Dave — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:30:17 +0000

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

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Coraline (2002)

Paraphrase by Gaiman of G. K. Chesterton. Gaiman included it as an epigraph, attributed to Chesterton, but without looking up the exact wording.