Peter S. Beagle Quotes
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Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl.
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You were the one who taught me," he said. "I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you.
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You pile of stones, you waste, you desolation, I'll stuff you with misery till it comes out of your eyes. I'll change your heart into green grass, and all you love into a sheep. I'll turn you into a bad poet with dreams.
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The horns came riding in like the rainbow masts of silver ships.
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Love was generous precisely because it could never be immortal.
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All lives are composed of two basic elements," the squirrel said, "purpose and poetry. By being ourselves, squirrel and raven, we fulfill the first requirement, you in flight and I in my tree. But there is poetry in the meanest of lives, and if we leave it unsought we leave ourselves unrealized. A life without food, without shelter, without love, a life lived in the rain—this is nothing beside a life without poetry.
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Ravens bring things to people. We're like that. It's our nature. We don't like it.
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I am a king's daughter, And if I cared to care, The moon that has no mistress Would flutter in my hair. No one dares to cherish What I choose to crave. Never have I hungered, For that I did not have I am a kings daughter, And I grow old within The prison of my person, The shackles of my skin. And I would run away And beg from door to door, Just to see your shadow Once, and never more.
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What is plucked will grow again, What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain-- What is gone is gone.
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there never is a happy ending because nothing ever ends.
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I am infected with life and will die of it in time.
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What happened instead was that the tree fell in love with him and began to murmur fondly of the joy to be found in the eternal embrace of a red oak. "Always, always," it sighed, "faithful beyond any man's deserving. I will keep the color of your eyes when no other in the world remembers your name. There is no immortality but a tree's love.
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The last unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.
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I always say perseverance is nine-tenths of any art — not that it's much help to be nine-tenths an artist, of course.
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She said, "I will go no farther." "There is no choice. We can only go on." The magician said again. "We can only go on.
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I know how to live here, I know how everything smells, and tastes, and is. What could I ever search for in the world, except this again?
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Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger, And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved.
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Her voice left a flavor of honey and gunpowder on the air.
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Marveling at his own boldness, he said softly, "I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you, as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me.
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Beyond the town, darker than dark, King Haggard's castle teetered like a lunatic on stilts.
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There are honest people in the world, but only because the devil considers their asking prices ridiculous.
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If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them - but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay.
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The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.
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The Unicorn Sonata... tells us that our true home is often right around the corner, if we'd only open our eyes - and our ears - to find it.
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Then what is magic for?" Prince Lír demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling. Schmedrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for.
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When I was very young every grownup was a hero. It's been all downhill since then, and I have only two left.
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I'll tell you something. Once I was very fond of a poem by Emily Dickinson or somebody. I only remember one line of it, but it goes, 'The soul selects her own society.' I used to tell it to everybody. Once I quoted it to a friend of mine, and he said, 'Maybe, but the body gets thrown into bed with the goddamnedest people.
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Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.
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song of elli (old age) "What is plucked will grow again, What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain What is gone is gone... What is sea-born dies on land, Soft is trod upon. What is given burns the hand - What is gone is gone... Here is there, and high is low; All may be undone. What is true, no two men know - What is gone is gone... Who has choices need not choose. We must, who have none. We can love but what we lose - What is gone is gone.
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The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.
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