Brian Froud Quotes

To believe in faeries is to step into an enchanted space where the rational mind meets the irrational heart, and all things become possible.

The myths and legends about Faerie are many and diverse, and often contradictory. Only one thing is certain - that nothing is certain. All things are possible in the land of Faerie.

Not all meanings are meant to be clear at once. Some ideas take time. Some words are designed to lead us on inner journeys, with truth hidden deep inside them.

My art's not safe, I don't want it to be safe, it's not meant to be safe, its controversial, it takes you into deep areas, it's a journey, its starts off in safe areas but it gets into deep waters.

Once you step onto the fairy path, it's almost like there's no way off. You have to keep going.

I started studying as an artist, but I got fed up with the fact that you can paint terrible pictures and if you explain them in an erudite way it's called great art. I thought this was rubbish.

The sylph is a fragment of the earth's soul in faery form.

Remember, as each man and woman is a microcosm reflecting the larger natural world, so healing of the self is also a healing for the world. As above, so below.

I feel that what you should illustrate is the space between the words. It's the betweenness, the otherness, that gives depth and dimension.

We almost need another word for fairy, that's the thing. Once people get to see what fairies' real power is, then they understand.

I always believed that the picture itself should tell the story.

Fairies are becoming much more popular. I see fairyland as this big sea, and the tide is sometimes out.

For me drawing is an attempt to understand what I feel about the world I live in.

It seems to me that art has lost its connection to spirit.

In college, I became interested in folk tales and fairy tales. Gradually I became more and more interested in the underlying meaning of it all and the possibility of the reality of real fairies.

I paint the spirit and soul of what I see.

I had a job as an illustrator, and I wanted to change the direction of my work. I moved to the country, and immediately I started to paint fairies and trolls.

It was hard for me to move forward, because I take responsibility for what I introduce into the world through my paintings. So to actually introduce something evil or bad was quite hard for me.

I went and studied graphic design, because it seemed to me that advertising is more honest - the image actually has a function. But once I started on that, I realized that was really boring.

I live in a house that's incredibly old, and it's typical that part of it is slightly in the ground. It's very earthed. It's almost like living in a hobbit house.

To me, intolerance leads down a dreadful path that the world sometimes seems to be going to.

In the 20th century, artists did a great disservice to fairies. They painted fairies in a way that was shallow and trite. So when people see my stuff, they suddenly realize the depth of fairies.

You do not see fairies through the eyes, you see them through the heart and that took me a long time to learn because I was always trying to see them through my eyes.