Beauty and the Beast Quotes

Shmoop will make you a better lover...of quotes

ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECT

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the beast.

Context

This line is from the song "Beauty and the Beast" by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken from the movie Beauty and the Beast (1991).

Love is timeless. Maybe that's why Howard Ashman and Alan Menken chose to close their classic Disney hit with the line "tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme," because people falling in love is nothing new. Of course, it's kind of notable when one of the people is a hideous beast, but, hey.

Mrs. Potts sings the title song of this 1991 movie to explain love to her son, Chip. The melody is almost like a sweet lullaby. You can just imagine your mom singing it to you before bed while waxing poetic about the timeless mysteries of love. You know, if your mom was a teapot.

Where you've heard it

Unless you've been locked in an enchanted castle for the last ten years, anytime you hear this, you know that we're talking about the ageless beauty of love and one of our all-time favorite Disney movies.

One of the books that went behind the scenes of this movie was aptly named Tale As Old As Time: The Art and Making of Beauty and the Beast.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Lots of stuff is timeless and there's no shame in pointing it out. But if you insist on rhyming when you do it, then we have to up the pretentiousness factor just a little bit.