Quotes from Patricia A. McKillip

She was a sweet, warm wind in my heart, a resting place, a place of peace where I could forget so many things . . .

Sorrow was like sleeping on stone, he decided. You had to settle all its bumps and sharp edges, come to terms against them, fit them around until they became bearable, and then carry your bed wherever you went.

I think they could teach us unimaginable things. Unimaginable! I can't imagine anything except danger. I know. That's why they're afraid of you.

Soon is such a long word.

even I could not guess what misgivings lay behind Perrin's clear eyes. Perhaps none; perhaps he trusted Laurel without question. Perhaps he was right. All I knew is what Laurel's hands said when she spoke Corbet's name. And how often she said it, until it seemed, like the falling of autumn leaves, or the long ribbons of migrating birds, one of the season's changes.

Kir stood close to his father, watching. He seemed, Peri realized, finally becalmed; already he looked more like his mother, as if he were relinquishing his human experience. He found her looking at him wistfully; he gave her a sea-smile. She swallowed a briny taste of sadness in her throat. Already he was leaving her.

Now you must go But it's raining, Caerles said. Ferly danced to the door and opend it to the starless night.Her voice hushed. Adventures comes on a night like this, when the whole world is whispering magic. Page 76

Morgan, he whispered, I wish you had not been someone I loved so.

Above us hung a tapestry of silver and gold and palest green that in my world had faded into white: a great oak so entwined with ivy it had died, its bare branches pushing through the leaves like bone. I stared at the roses, wanting to hold my hands to such red, but like the light, they burned cold.

The river narrowed, quickened, its surface trembling like the eyes of dreamers.

She didn't bother taking off her snow-crusted cloak; she came to us quickly, dripping and shivering, her eyes luminous and strained from trying to see beyond the world.

In sixteen years since then, she had changed beyond recognition, and he had not changed by a moment, being the same dispassionate, thin-haired wraith who had picked her up with his bony hands and tucked her into a book bag to add to the acquisitions of the royal library.

She spread her hands. That morning they had been soft as feathers, jeweled, polished, and perfumed. Now they were crisscrossed with blood and dirt, wearing only bruises for jewels

I don't know you. Then why did you do that for me? Because you are so full of wonder. After what I-- After-- He gestured, his eyes hidden; deep lines ran down his cheeks like claw marks. That seems very precious to me now. How could I not give you such a small thing?

She [Kane] and Axis performed the ancient ritual of flinging their toys at one another's heads, and in that moment recognized a common destiny. They became inseparable.

Explain to me again, he begged, why we are here. She had told him once before; it had been like listening to a vivid, improbable dream.

Oh, yes. He felt the pearls brush down his face again. Dory turned: he met her eyes and let her see the new pearls forming. Anything that beautiful is terrible. Because it's outside of you. It's not you. You'll do anything to make it part of you. You'd eat it, drown in it, kill it, let it kill you. Anything to stop it from not being you.

His face, at once beautiful and feral, revealed no more than the lion's face, which says nothing at all as the lion crouches and waits. It speaks only when it springs.

The giant Grof was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind and he died of what he saw there.

Do you want a half-truth or truth?" "Truth." "Then you will have to trust me." His voice was suddenly softer than the fire sounds, melting into the silence within the stones. "Beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond hope. Trust me." Morgon

if you speak of this I will tear out your voice and top it down the nearest drain

You nearly killed him- You do dwell on details

Sorrow was like sleeping on stones, he decided. You had to settle all its bumps and sharp edges, come to terms against them, shift them around until they became bearable, and then carry your bed wherever you went.

Sybel, you went from me like a dream, so silently, so irrevocably—I could not bear it, I could not bear it—