The Grimm brothers always said that their informants were women, which is possibly not true, women of the people. There is the constant evocation of women's voices, in the collecting and arrangement of these stories, and yet the message of… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
“Ectoplasm is shapeless, it is “informe,” a kind of primordial paste—and to show itself as this, it annexes semiotic markers that designate intermediate spirit worlds. When looking at these fluid, inchoate forms, sometimes imprinted with a face, it is worth recalling that the word larva, used in English for the early stage of a caterpillar, meant “ghost” or “specter” in… — Marina Warner Copy Share
I am not a great believer in dialectical struggle. I am much more of a fusion person. I see it as a dialogue, or… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
I was brought up a Catholic and I was quite fervent, because I was sent to a convent school. — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
The female form provides the solution in which the essence itself is held; she is passio, and acted upon, the male is actio, the… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
Love can make you turn on yourself, and it can do harmful things to you. It's a deep lesson in human psychology, as with… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
There is a theory, that I rather subscribe to. The frame story implies that if he doesn't change, she will kill him. It's all very complex and subtle. The story is about a woman who persuades a man in power to a different temper and attitude, and so it is about women's wiles, what women will get up to. She… — Marina Warner Copy Share
Creating simplicity often makes the heart leap; order has been restored, the crooked made straight. But order is understanding that things cannot be made… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
The other thing about the Nights is that it is quite racist. One parentheses is that I think this is one of the negative things that appeal to people, that The Arabian Nights could be used as a disguise for racism. It suited the West. You could smuggle racism into children's literature, you see. The African magician in the story… — Marina Warner Copy Share
The tales are quite hard to remember and I found that going back to it between bouts of writing fiction, I was having to… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
One of the metaphors of the book is the carpet. Not just the flying carpet, but the carpet as a woven surface in which many repetitions and motifs recur and mirror one another. This is very much reflected within the stories: they have borders within borders, repeated motifs which change. They have their feet in oral conventions, and for the… — Marina Warner Copy Share
The more one knows fairy tales the less fantastical they appear; they can be vehicles of the grimmest realism, expressing hope against all the… — Marina Warner Copy Share Image
