"But the Emperor has nothing at all..." - Quote by Hans Christian Andersen

“My life is a lovely story, happy and full of incident.”

“When the bird of the heart begins to sing, too often will reason stop up her ears.”

“We cannot expect to be happy always ... by experiencing evil as well as good we become wise.”

“Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life, - there, if one must speak out, the real man.”

“We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto.”

“Beauty is the brilliance of truth.”

“Why couldn't the world that concerns us- be a fiction? And if somebody asked, 'but to be a fiction there surely belongs an author?'- couldn't one answer simply: 'Why? Doesn't this "belongs" perhaps belong to the fiction, too?'”

“My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd."This Land of Saints," and then as the applause died out,"Of plaster Saints;" his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.”

“Ignorance of one's misfortunes is clear gain.”