Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nothing in recent years, on television or anywhere else, has improved on a good story that begins "Once upon a time..."
The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time.
Writing is storytelling. No matter how you slice it, you're saying, 'Once upon a time.' That's what writing is all about.
Anyone can have a once-upon-a-time or a happily-ever-after, but it's the journey between that makes the story worth telling.
What actresses do today when they appear on the screen is what they did once upon a time for getting to appear on the screen.
My films are often characterized by the lack of women present in them, except for this last one [Once Upon a Time in America].
Really believing in "once upon a time". Believing that it will draw you in, take you with me to a place you've never been before.
Once upon a time people talked about the infallibility of the pope; today it is that of the merchant which they wish to establish.
When I was little, I made up my own fairy tales, and the ghostly echo of Once upon a time shapes all the fiction Ive ever written.
Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.
Every photo, every 'ONCE' in time is also the beginning of a story starting 'once upon a time...' Every photo is the first frame of a movie.
The difference between a fairy tale and a sea tale? A fairy tale starts with "Once upon a time". A sea tale starts with " This ain't no $hit"!
Once upon a time the world was sweeter than we knew. Everything was ours; how happy we were then, but then once upon a time never comes again.
ONCE UPON A TIME when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith.Valentine Michael Smith was as real as taxes but he was a race of one.
Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a great man. Later, a good man. Now, finally, I find it difficult enough and honor enough to be -- a man.
Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked.
For every once upon a time there must be a story to follow, because if a story doesn't, something else will, and it might not be as harmless as a story.
Once upon a time there was an old country, wrapped up in habit and caution. We have to transform our old France into a new country and marry it to its time.
Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old.
I suppose once upon a time a Test match was something you looked forward to go and watch. It's very hard to get the quality these days because the focus is more on quantity.
When I used Claudia [Cardinale] for example, in Once Upon a Time in the West, she represented the birth of American matriarchy. Because women had enormous weight in America.
Once upon a time, government budgets were balanced, our money was sound, the streets were safe, and taxes imposed by all levels of government took less than 10% of our income.
Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.
You see in Once Upon a Time in the West the whole film moves around her [Claudia Cardinale]. If you take her out, there's no more film. She's the central motor of the entire happening.
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo
Ninety percent of the time, you're going to hear no. It took me seven years to make 'Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored.' Nobody wanted to see the movie made. I got the movie made.
It was not once upon a time, but a certain time in history, before anyone knew what was happening, that Walt Disney cast a spell on the fairy tale, and he has held it captive ever since.
Once upon a time there was a saucer pie. A saucer pie is one that is baked in a saucer instead of a pan; and if you have never seen one, I hope you will before you are a hundred years old.
McGough: I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've caught poetry. Mr Bones: Oh really? Well, don't worry, sir - I used to suffer from short stories. McGough: Really? When? Mr Bones: Oh, once upon a time...
There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.
Ballroom dancing: it's a wonderful thing at so many levels because you've got to follow the rules. They used to call those rules etiquette once upon a time, but you don't really have that any more.
...In the past, as now, [Hollywood] was a stamping ground for tastelessness, violence, and hyperbole, but once upon a time it turned out a product which sweetened the flavor of life all over the world.
On 'Swingtown,' I think that's when I was able to blend the character-slash-leading lady roles, and that's what I'm doing on 'Once Upon a Time' as well. She's a leading lady, but she's also this character.
Had I been brighter, the ladies been gentler, the Scotch been weaker, had the gods been kinder, had the dice been hotter, this could have been a one-sentence story: Once upon a time I lived happily ever after.
Once upon a time there were three little foxes Who didn't wear stockings, and they didn't wear sockses, But they all had handkerchiefs to blow their noses, And they kept their handkerchiefs in cardboard boxes.
Once upon a time . . .” “In the beginning was . . .” That’s the way it always starts off. Every story, gospel, history, chronicle, myth, legend, folktale, or old wives’ tale blues riff begins with “Woke up this mornin’. . . .
Just so you know, when they say "once upon a time"....they're lying. It's not once upon a time. Its not even twice upon a time. It's hundreds of times, over and over, every time someone opens up the pages of this dusty old book.
One hundred years ago, if someone said, 'damn,' people would take notice. Now, you can say almost anything. Secrets are the same way. Once upon a time when a secret was revealed, people paid an enormous amount of attention to it.
I like that "once upon a time" quality, where the telling of a tale has an elevated sense of story. There's a whimsical quality to it. Sometimes in fairy tales more things seem possible, even though often they're real world based.
We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.' Precisely,' said a passing bush.
Humans simply aren’t moved to action by 'data dumps,' dense PowerPoint slides, or spreadsheets packed with figures. People are moved by emotion. The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with “Once upon a time
Just as once upon a time you could make the experience of religion or nature a great metaphor, so now it is with love. It's just not the kind of thing you can put at the center of a work of literature and have it really reveal us to ourselves.
The trouble is now, with rock'n'roll and stuff, it gets so big that it loses what once upon a time was a magnificent thing, where it was special and quite elusive and occasionally a little sinister and it had its own world nobody could get in.
Once upon a time there was a Queen who had a son so ugly and so misshapen that it was long disputed whether he had human form. A fairy who was at his birth said, however, that he would be very amiable for all that, since he would have uncommon good sense.
Once upon a time fairy tales were told to audiences of young and old alike. It is only in the last century that such tales were deemed fit only for small children, stripped of much of their original complexity, sensuality, and power to frighten and delight.
Once upon a time, the most successful Democratic leader of them all, FDR, looked south and said I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill clad, ill nourished. Today our national Democratic leaders look south and say, I see one third of a nation and it can go to hell.
Once upon a time there was an island named Blogosphere, and at the very center of that island stood a great castle built of stone, and spreading out from that castle for miles in every direction was a vast settlement of peasants who lived in shacks fashioned of tin and cardboard and straw.
Once upon a time, began the story of you.Many perilous, wonderful, harrowing, brilliant, delightful, profound things happened.And yet—the most exciting twists and best turns are yet to come. And it absolutely does not matter how old or young you are.Like a bright carpet of wonders, enjoy the unrolling of your story.
Once upon a time, there was a little creature that was rather small and rather wicked and it lived all alone in the woods. The little creature lived in a little den, at the bottom of a little ravine, filled with not-at-all little brambles and on the edge of a forest that could only be described as really freakin' huge.
When you take a child who's hollering like hell, sit him on your knee, and say "once upon a time", you stop him hollering. As long as you go on telling him a story, he will listen. Novelists who neglect this fundamental effect do so at their peril. They become what is known as the experimental novelist, and an experimental novel is not really a novel at all.