Quotes from Robin McKinley

But it is not, as we say when we are being diplomatic, a fruitful source of inquiry.

Tales are as much the necessary fabric of our lives as our bodies are.

The burden she carried was different from yours, and it had worn on her for many years. When I knew her she had forgotten joy, although I believe Arlbeth gave her a little back again.

Even Mongo liked him, although Mongo likes everybody. (Also Mongo was so thrilled with himsel for staying in the dog bed till I'd released him that nothing was going to blow his mood.)

No wonder he'd never really finished becoming one of us. We just thought it was because he was half Japanese, and lived in a huge house on the other side of town with a dad who was never home and who none of our parents had ever met. And possibly because he was an arrogant moody stuck-on-himself creepazoid And here he wasn't even a real gizmohead. He was just a grind. And a werewolf.

What we can do, we must do: we must use what we are given, and we must use it the best we can, however much or little help we have for the task.

One has various things in the back of one's mind. Occasionally an opportunity presents itself to bring one forward. Most of these opportunities come to nothing. Once in a very great while one -- or two -- do come to something.

Campaigns are a great bore; they are mostly about either finding enough water for your company, or being up to your knees in mud and all the food's gone bad. Battles are blessedly brief; but you're sick with terror before, blind with panic during, and miserable with horror by the results, when you have to bury your friends, or listen to them scream.

And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?

I long for another human face just as I fear it.

Yes. Isn't it … silly … how … upsetting … just thinking can be?" "It's not silly at all. The insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are.

I knew you'd figure it out, he said. And I hoped that by the time you figured it out, you would be sufficiently accustomed to the situation for the realization to be less... dispiriting.

It is all very well to say that all princesses are good and beautiful and charming; but this is usually a determined optimism on everybody's part rather than the truth. After all, if a girl is a princess, she is undeniably a princess, and the best must be made of it; and how much pleasanter it would be if she were good and beautiful. There's always hope that if enough people believe as though she is, a little of it will rub off.

HIs riders knew most of this, even if they did not see it with the dire clarity Corlath was forced to....

She was ashamed. She would not--she would not--be frightened of him: he was what he was, and he had made a promise he would keep.

Mr. Responsible Media was looking rebellious, but this was my country. I was the Cinnamon Roll Queen and most of those assembled were my devoted subjects.

Robin: I'm sure you've learnt to bake, but you have not learned to handle Much. The phrases that you need my lady, are No, No you can't, and No, get out of here before I throw something at you.

He was not tall and handsome and flashing-eyed like his older brother, but there was kindness and grace in him, and intelligence in his unremarkable brown eyes.

The most serious drawback to the telling-nothing approach is that it made that much more of a mystery of what had happened, and the nature of gossip abhors a vacuum of the unexplained.

Swords. That is no faenorn ; that is slaughter." The Grand Seneschal shrugged. "The Master did not protest. And, indeed, what weapon could he have suggested that would suit him any better?" "Fire," she said. "He would not," said the Seneschal. "You know he would not.

Roses are for love. Not forget-me-not, honeysuckle, silly sweethearts' love but the love that makes you and keeps you whole, love that gets you through the worst your life'll give you and that pours out of you when you're given the best instead.

the sheep] sidled up beside him and bumped him lovingly with its head. Val looked at it sadly. I am sorry, you ugly creature, he said. I have not used my magic in a long time, and I am very out of practice.

She wished for Ebono as she wished every time she saw Lrrianay at her father's shoulder, or any pegasus at any bond-mate's shoulder, or any pegasus. Or any time she took a breath, she wished again for Ebon.

They could at least part with love. It was like Tor to make the gesture; her father, for all his kindness, was too proud—or too much a king; and she was too proud, or too bitter, or too young.