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Notable quotes

“Myth is a story of a vision; it is a presentation of that vision told in terms of the vision’s symbols, characters, chronology, and import. It is a vehicle of transmission, of sharing, of renewal, and as such plays an integral part in the ongoing psychic life of a people.”
— Paula Gunn Allen, about visions among the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Chapter Two
“Myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthroughs of the sacred (or the "supernatural") into the World. It is this sudden breakthrough of the sacred that really establishes the World and makes it what it is today. Furthermore, it is as a result of the intervention of Supernatural Beings that man himself is what he is today, a mortal, sexed, and cultural being...”
— Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (1963), as translated by Willard R. Trask
“Real myths are often strange and startlingly unfamiliar, and don't always give up their meanings easily; you have to tease them out, and for me, that's one of the pleasures of reading older collections of lore.”
— Elizabeth Hand, Elizabeth Hand on Mortal Love at HarperCollins (2004)
“Are there any mythical beasts which aren't simple pastiches of nature? Centaurs, minotaurs, unicorns, griffons, chimeras, sphinxes, manticores, and the like don't speak well for the human imagination. None is as novel as a kangaroo or starfish.”
— William Poundstone, Labyrinths of Reason (1988), p. 11
“Myths circulate like gifts without givers, and no myth teller (cares to) knows where they come from or who invented them.”
— Trinh T. Minh-ha,
“The mythology is kind of a pattern. I'm very taken by mythology. I read it at a very early age and kept on reading it. Before I discovered science fiction I was reading mythology. And from that I got interested in comparative religion and folklore and related subjects. And when I began writing, it was just a fertile area I could use in my stories...”
— Roger Zelazny "A Conversation With Roger Zelazny" (8 April 1978), talking with Terry Dowling and Keith Curtis in Science Fiction Vol. 1, #2 (June 1978)

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.