“So I believe that we should trust our children. Normal children do
not confuse reality and fantasy – they confuse them much less often than
we adults do (as a certain great fantasist pointed out in a story
called “The Emperor’s New Clothes”). Children know perfectly well that
unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if
they are good books, are true books. All too often, that’s more than
Mummy and Daddy know; for, in denying their childhood, the adults have
denied half their knowledge, and are left with the sad, sterile little
fact: “Unicorns aren’t real.” And that fact is one that never got
anybody anywhere (…) It is by such statements as, “Once upon a time
there was a dragon,” or “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” –
it is by such beautiful non-facts that we fantastic human beings may
arrive, in our peculiar fashion, at the truth (…)
People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
(Ursula K. LeGuin)
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