--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Peasants and princes, bailiffs and…" description: "\"“Peasants and princes, bailiffs and bakers' boys, merchants and mermaids, the figures were all immediately familiar. I had read these stories a hundred..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/be9/diane-setterfield-1008_stories_peasants-and-princes-bailiffs-and-bakers_395962.jpg" --- # Peasants and princes, bailiffs and bakers' boys, merchants… ![“Peasants and princes, bailiffs and bakers' boys, merchants and mermaids, the figures were all immediately familiar. I had read these stories a hundred, a thousand, times before. They were stories everyone knew. But gradually, as I read, their familiarity fell away from them. They became strange…” quote by Diane Setterfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/be9/diane-setterfield-1008_stories_peasants-and-princes-bailiffs-and-bakers_395962.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/be9/diane-setterfield-1008_stories_peasants-and-princes-bailiffs-and-bakers_395962.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/be9/diane-setterfield-1008_stories_peasants-and-princes-bailiffs-and-bakers_395962.jpg) > ““Peasants and princes, bailiffs and bakers' boys, merchants and mermaids, the figures were all immediately familiar. I had read these stories a hundred, a thousand, times before. They were stories everyone knew. But gradually, as I read, their familiarity fell away from them. They became strange. They became new. These characters were not the colored manikins I remembered from my childhood picture books, mechanically acting out the story one more time. They were people… The stories were shot through with an unfamiliar mood. Everyone achieved their heart's desire...but only when it was too late did they realize the price they must pay for escaping their destiny. Every Happy Ever After was tainted.”” [Diane Setterfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/diane-setterfield/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Repeated familiar stories become strange when reread, revealing deeper, unsettling truths about destiny and cost of desire. **In simple terms:** Familiar tales feel new and eerie on repeated reading. Key Takeaway Recognize hidden costs in seemingly perfect endings. Themes storytelling destiny illusion cost repetition Mood reflective melancholic Type analytical literary When to use this quote - reading classic literature - teaching creative writing - analyzing fairy tales - discussing narrative expectations Key Concepts Narrative transformation psychology of familiarity mythic archetypes Questions to Reflect On - How does repeated exposure change your perception of a story? - What hidden costs might we ignore in our own “happy endings”? A Different Perspective The quote assumes all stories share a universal pattern, which may not hold for all cultures. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Stories](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/stories/) [Story](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/story/) [Too late](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/too-late/) ## Related quotes > [“Maybe like the never-ending stories within stories of the One Thousand and One Nights, life is dream within dream all the way through?”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-m-forester/maybe-like-the-never-ending-stories-within-stories-of-the-one/) [H.M. Forester](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-m-forester/) > [Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cornelia-funke/her-curiosity-was-too-much-for-her-she-felt-almost-as-if-she-could/) [Cornelia Funke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cornelia-funke/) > [The human world is made of stories, not people. 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I tried to read stories from men and women who had survived slavery because…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jurnee-smollett/but-really-for-me-i-tried-to-find-first-person-accounts-i-tried-to/) [Jurnee Smollett](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jurnee-smollett/) ## More by Diane Setterfield > [“They are more real than the books on the shelves, books that are sketched with the barest hint of a line here and there,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/diane-setterfield/they-are-more-real-than-the-books-on-the-shelves-books-that-are/) [Diane Setterfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/diane-setterfield/) > [“Margaret Lea.” “The biographer.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/diane-setterfield/margaret-lea-the-biographer/) [Diane Setterfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/diane-setterfield/) > [“He was the first of my ghosts.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/diane-setterfield/he-was-the-first-of-my-ghosts/) [Diane Setterfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/diane-setterfield/) > [“It was like living entirely inside a book.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/diane-setterfield/it-was-like-living-entirely-inside-a-book/) [Diane Setterfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/diane-setterfield/) > [“Then something rang a bell in his mind. 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Of course I valued "Jane Eyre" over the anonymous stranger...Of course all of Shakespeare was worth…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/diane-setterfield/of-course-i-loved-books-more-than-people-of-course-i-valued-jane-eyre/) [Diane Setterfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/diane-setterfield/) [Explore all 292 Diane Setterfield quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/diane-setterfield/) ## More Stories quotes > [Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose. Their stories are, if they are truthful, untidy affairs, resistant to windings-up and sortings-out. 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I like to bang the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/elmore-leonard/it-took-me-20-years-to-buy-an-electric-typewriter-because-i-was/) [Elmore Leonard](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/elmore-leonard/) > [Having small children and being an investigative reporter would seem like a difficult mix, but it worked well for me. I was often working…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jill-abramson/having-small-children-and-being-an-investigative-reporter-would-seem/) [Jill Abramson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jill-abramson/) > [In the current climate, things that are true, brave human stories become political.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cate-blanchett/in-the-current-climate-things-that-are-true-brave-human-stories/) [Cate Blanchett](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cate-blanchett/) > [It goes to show you how we in the press so often miss the big stories that are right under our noses. 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We tell the best stories.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alice-hoffman/women-know-things-that-men-will-never-know-we-keep-the-best-secrets/) [Alice Hoffman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alice-hoffman/) [Browse all 19,094 Stories quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/stories/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Peasants and princes, bailiffs and bakers' boys, merchants and mermaids, the figures were all immediately familiar. I had read these stories a hundred, a thousand, times before. They were stories everyone knew. But gradually, as I read, their familiarity fell away from them. They became strange. They became new. These characters were not the colored manikins I remembered from my childhood picture books, mechanically acting out the story one more time. They were people… The stories were shot through with an unfamiliar mood. 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