Quotes from Robin McKinley

It was of grey stone, huge block set on block;but it caught the sunlight like a dolphin's back at dawn.

the bus timetable sites are all run by an inbred cabal of malicious gnomes. Who don't speak English. And who don't count very well either. Or tell time. And they certainly can't read maps.

Not all honey— she had concluded— had a specific use beyond what all honey is good for, sweetness and salves. But this honey, it was somehow so strong that it must be for something, though she had still not learnt what it was. The best she had come to was that this honey was for joy...

I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm here and I'm listening; and there is still joy in this world.

It is not a comfortable passion.

Her betrothed is a lout, her father is a boor; and now her brother is trailing around looking like a thunderstorm about to burst. Men are not sensible creatures.' 'Thank you,' said Robin.

She thought, I need no cup. I am Chalice. I am filling with the grief and hurt and fear of my demesne; the shattered earthlines weigh me down; I am brimming with the needs of my people.

At first Lissar merely ran away; away from the yellow city, away from the prince whom she loved with both halves of her broken heart.

It's kind of interesting you're driving a car big enough for a wolfhound and a mastiff to get in the back of today, I said. And a greyhound, a dark brown bear, and a brindle utility vehicle, said Jill. Greyhounds don't take up much room, I said. They're like dog silhouettes.

we may not like it, but we need human friends, because we have human enemies whether we will or nay.

Don't let the title mislead you, Arlbeth told her. The king is simply the visible one. I'm so visible, in fact, that most of the important work has to be done by other people. Nonsense, said Tor. Arlbeth chuckled. Your loyalty does you honor, but you're in the process of becoming too visible to be effective yourself, so what do you know about it?

Stop it. This is me, remember? We've been thrown up by the same puppies.

She had not meant to name them, but she could not help herself; and having done so she thought, Let their names be symbols that their lives are worth the keeping. Let them struggle a little the harder, to keep their names.

I have a mastery of the art of worrying that is a burden to me if I may not use it.

She fell in love with him, and he with her; that's a spell if you like.

But their strength is the strength of numbers and of stubbornness and persistence; do not underestimate it.

Although when there were too many people around- which there certainly were today- it was hard even to remember to say thank you: all those people were like drowning.

Don't you mind being short?' she blurted. He spread his small hands and looked at them. 'I am a magician, not a princess. A pony costs less to keep than a horse, which means I can buy more books.' He paused. 'It is not always a bad thing, to be overlooked.

Majid gave me a brief dazzling golden stare and then half-lidded his eyes again. I know when my life is being threatened.

The sheep, I guess demented with love, didn't object to this at all. Casimir somehow found time to pull up some grass for it, and it lay down and munched its grass and then chewed its cud like hanging out with dogs [...] was something it always did. Maybe it thought other sheep were boring and that it had finally found its spiritual home.

It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered; it just is, like sunlight or mountains. It is for human beings to see the shadows behind the light, and the light behind the shadows. It is, perhaps, why dogs have people, and people have dogs.

There's always a nest time,' said the king, 'unfortunately. You just don't know what it's going to be about.

But he hated to see his people people unhappy--because he was a good king, not because he was a nervous one--

Despair was a private weakness she could not afford to indulge.