Quote by Hans Christian Andersen: “Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.”

The most astonishing story you will ever encounter is the one you are living right now. Andersen, who wrote fairy tales professionally, is saying that real life — with its strangeness, reversals, and wonders — outdoes anything he could invent.

Andersen wrote during the height of the Romantic movement, when artists and writers were reacting against industrial modernity by celebrating imagination, nature, and folk tradition. His own life — born in poverty to a washerwoman and a cobbler, rising to international fame — was itself a kind of fairy tale.

Danish author and poet whose fairy tales, including The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, and The Ugly Duckling, have been translated into more languages than any other work except the Bible. He also wrote novels, plays, and travel narratives, but is remembered above all for transforming the fairy tale into literary art.