Snow White Quotes

Context

This misquoted line is spoken by the Evil Queen, voiced by Lucille La Verne, in the film Snow White, directed by David Hand et al (1937).

The Evil Queen in Snow White is so vain she doesn't just stare at herself in the mirror all day, she gets her mirror to tell her who she needs to kill. She does this by talking to her "slave in the magic mirror" (let's save a discussion of forced labor in the Magic Kingdom for another day, all right?) and asking him, "Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" Many people, who may be vain in appearance but not in speech, misquote this as, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the best movie quoter of them all? Not anyone who gets this quote wrong.

Where you've heard it

You've heard this everywhere. Even Julia Roberts's 2012 Snow White-inspired movie, Mirror Mirror, gets its title from the misquote!

Additional Notable References

• Analysts misuse this quote. If they can't accurately quote movies, we can't expect them to use accurate dates, either.
• Women writers explore fairy tales in the anthology Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.
• Even Murder, She Wrote got it wrong! No, Jessica Fletcher! No!

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.

Being vain enough to kill is pretty terrible, but not even bothering to get the quote right is worse. If you want to be the hottest, you should be able to talk the talk as well as shimmy the shimmy.