“You see, ladies and gentlemen, Your Royal Majesty! You can never know what to expect from the real nightingale, but everything is determined in the artificial bird. It will be so-and-so, and no different! You can explain it; you can open it up and show the human thought—how the cylinders are placed, how they work, and how one follows the other!”

(from “The Nightingale,” page 10)

It’s an old innate law and privilege that when the moon is in the precise position it was last night, and the wind blows as it blew yesterday, then all will-o‘-the-wisps born at that hour and minute can become human beings.

(from “The Will-o’-the-Wisps Are in Town,” page 37)

“This is certainly an interesting tinderbox if it will give me what I want like this!”

(from “The Tinderbox,” page 90)

“I almost didn’t close my eyes the whole night! God knows what could have been in the bed? I was lying on something hard, so I am completely black and blue all over my body. It’s quite dreadful!”

(from “The Princess on the Pea,” page 107)

Way out at sea the water is as blue as the petals on the loveliest corn-flower, and as clear as the purest glass, but it’s very deep, deeper than any anchor rope can reach. Many church steeples would have to be placed end to end to reach from the bottom up to the surface and beyond. Down there the sea people live.

(from “The Little Mermaid,” page 188)

The emperor came to them with his most distinguished cavaliers. Both swindlers lifted one arm in the air as if they were holding something and said, “See, here are the pants. Here’s the jacket, and here’s the cape!” They continued on and on. “They are as light as cobwebs. You might think you weren’t wearing anything, but that’s the beauty of this fabric.”

(from “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” page 215)

In the middle of a garden there was a rose tree that was completely full of roses, and in one of these, the most beautiful of them all, lived an elf. He was so tiny that no human eye could see him. He had a bedroom behind every rose petal. He was as well formed and lovely as any child could be and had wings from his shoulders all the way down to his feet. What a lovely fragrance there was in his rooms, and how clear and lovely the walls were! Of course they were the fine, pink rose petals.

(from “The Rose Elf,” page 289)

Dance she did and dance she must, dance in the dark night. The shoes carried her away over thorns and stubble that scratched her until she bled. She danced over the heath until she came to a lonely little cottage. She knew that the executioner lived there....

(from “The Red Shoes,” page 395)

The poor duckling who had been last out of the egg and who looked so dreadful was bitten, pushed, and made fun of, both by the ducks and the chickens. “He’s too big,” they all said, and the turkey rooster, who was born with spurs and thought he was an emperor, blew himself up like a clipper ship under full sail, went right up to him, gobbled at him, and turned red in the face. The poor duckling didn’t know whether he was coming or going, and was very sad because he was so ugly. Indeed, he was the laughing stock of the entire hen yard.

(from “The Ugly Duckling,” pages 485-486)

Once upon a time there was a darning needle that was so refined and stuck-up that she was under the illusion that she was a sewing needle.

(from “The Darning Needle,” page 555)

Everything was once again where it was before except for the two old portraits of the peddler and the goose girl. They had been blown up to the wall in the great hall, and when someone who was an art expert said that they were painted by a master, they were repaired and remained hanging there. No one knew before that they were any good, and how would you know that? Now they hung in a place of honor. “Everything in its proper place” and eventually that’s where everything ends up. Eternity is long—longer than this story.

(from “Everything in Its Proper Place,” page 597)