Quotes from Patricia A. McKillip

The human world is a cold and bitter place: nothing lasts in it. You must know that by now…. What did you imagine you were doing in those two rooms? Trying to turn yourself human?" "Yes," Corbet said, so simply that for a breath he rendered his father incapable of moving.

Al gigante Grof le lanzaron una piedra al ojo, ese ojo se volvió hacia el interior en su mente, y el gigante murió por lo que vio en ella

She realized something then that made her stumble a step. All along her way, there had been candles lit, random and unobtrusive. Had she, she wondered in that instant, simply chosen the path that she could best see? Or was someone ahead anticipating her, lighting candles to guide her way?

I think the best way to teach well is to be always learning something. Don't you agree?

at the end of a breathless day when the air seemed so heavy and full of molten light, everyone sweated drops of gold instead of brine.

Perhaps' could be spun endlessly into different tales; even telling herself all of them, she would still be none the wiser.

Coren's arms tightened around the child. "It is Norrel's son—it is not an animal.

They were all of timber. He saw vividly a sheet of fire spreading across the entire city, burning crops and orchards, billowing along the

I did not say what I thought; perhaps, if it remained unspoken, it would become untrue.

The journey was more important than the place; most important was to return home, with crumpled maps, salt and pepper shakers shaped like clam shells, a sweatshirt with whales on it, and be able to say: I have been there, I have gone on a journey, I have come safely home.

You have a name and a destiny. I can only believe that sooner or later you will stumble across some hope.

I would be mute, beautiful, changeless as the earth of An for you. I would be your memory, without age, always innocent, always waiting in the King's white house at Anuin - I would do that for you and for no other man in the realm. But it would be a lie, and I will do anything but lie to you - I swear that.

What you say, when you say a word. What you think when you say it. What I see and hear when you speak. Words are ancient; visions and echoes cling to them like barnacles on the whale's back. You speak words used in poetry and song since the beginning of the world we know. Here, you will learn to hear and to speak as if you had never listened, never spoken before. Then you will learn the thousand meanings within the word. What you say when you say fire.

Where did you go?" "To Mirkon Forest. I sat tossing a stone in my hand and learned nothing at all from it. Wine?

Nobody, living or dead, makes things easy even when you love them. Especially then.

If nobody's talking, then nobody can say no.

Then he was dragged out of flight, pulled again into the shrieking snarl of wind to stare into the empty eyes of the monster that saw nothing everywhere it looked, except when it looked at itself.

He seems to be fighting again. But whether he is battling memories or something real, I can't tell.

Then go." She held his eyes. Just go and find her. Alone. Now. Because all I can tell your father, if you don't, is that you belong to Brume, you have never truly left her, and the King of Serre's only son and heir is still imprisoned in one of the witch's spells, still doing her bidding in spite of all your protests that you are free.

Hexel's blue eyes were narrowed, his long, black hair looked suddenly windblown, though the candles behind him burned still. As a dramatist and composer, he had an exhausting passion for dramatics. He was lean, moody, intense; students at the music school constantly pushed notes under his door, or set his discarded scribbles to music, or dropped roses or themselves across his work.

I suppose it was easier, in that harsh world, to make demons out of your neighbors, with their imperfections, tempers, rheumy eyes, missing teeth, irritating habits and smells, than to find angelic beauty in them.

She closed her eyes, felt a long breath ease out of her, and realized then how much knowledge could weigh until it was shared.

His queen is a ghost of what she must once have been. A pale woman with a perpetual twilight in her eyes, who rarely speaks. But within her silence, she carries like a rich treasure the tales of Serre.

There's a difference," he said, between sorcery and magic. Magic is inherent everywhere, in everything; it cannot lie and it cannot be deceived. Sorcery can lie, can twist, can delude. It may be that you have a gift for one but not the other.