But if we are to grasp the full value of the materials, we must note that myths are not exactly comparable to dream. Their figures originate from the same sources -- the unconscious wells of fantasy-- and their grammar is the same, but they are not the spontaneous products of sleep. On the contrary their patterns are consciously controlled. And their understood function is to serve as powerful picture language for the communication of traditional wisdom.

The hero, the waker of his own soul, is himself but the convenient means of his own dissolution.

Humor is the touchstone of the truly mythological as distinct from the more literal-minded and sentimental theological mood.

Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history or science, it is killed.