“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

― G.K. Chesterton

This is a great, insightful quote, unfortunately...
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." So, this quote pops up at the beginning (or epigraph) of Coraline, where the author attributes it to the famous writer, G.K. Chesterton. Except Chesterton never actually wrote this.

So, this quote pops up at the beginning (or epigraph) of Coraline, where the author attributes it to the famous writer, G.K. Chesterton. Except Chesterton never actually wrote this. It seems that this quote is only a paraphrase from something G.K. Chesterton penned about fairy tales (Neil Gaiman just wrote down the idea from memory and forgot to go back and pull the actual quote from Chesterton). Oops. See, kids? Even bestselling authors make mistakes.

But what does the quote mean? Basically, it means that fairy tales aren't just made up to entertain kids before bedtime. They also have important lessons that teach us things. Of course, real dragons don't exist (sorry, Daenerys), but there are loads of things in the world that scare us just as much as dragons. And any good story will show us how to overcome our dragons. And that's exactly what Coraline does in her tale.

Gee, we guess we don't mind the misquote as much now.