Quotes from Robin McKinley

But the worst borne is not necessarily past and over with thereby. The worst of fighting a dragon is being caught in its fire, but you do not survive dragon encounters by commanding your muscles to withstand dragon fire, because you and they cannot. You survive by avoiding being burnt.

Sylvi wished she could gouge out the look in Dorogin's stony eyes, and change the course of history. She wished Fthoom had been eaten by a sea monster.

Lack of adaptability is the root cause of much trouble in large organizations.

Narknon put a paw on Harry's chest and began licking her face; a hunting-cat's tongue is much harsher than a housecat's. Harry thought her skin would crumble and peel off, but she didn't have the strength to push her away.

When you're feeding the second coachload of tourists that day you aren't thinking about the birthday party for fifty next week.

It is halfway true that if you are involved in a family coffeehouse you don't have a life.

He cannot be so bad if he loves roses so much.

He was a vampire. I was a human. We weren't supposed to have any bonds between us, except straightforward generic ones of murderous antagonism and so on.

Magicians scorned talking to animals; animal thoughts weren't nearly orderly enough to suit magicians, and were always full of large untidy preoccupations, like sex and death and the next meal.

When spring came I dug up the garden and planted it, and weeded it, and prayed over it, and fidgeted; and almost three years of lying fallow had agreed with it, because it produced radishes the size of onions, potatoes the size of melons, and melons the size of small sheep. The herb border ran wild, and the air smelled wonderful.

I—I don't know what possessed me to tell the story tonight. I do believe the storm has crept into my head and disarranged all my thinking.

He wasn't really boring. She just wasn't in love with him.

Muffin cups in my bakery were real sorcerer's apprentice material, like the dough for the cinnamon rolls every morning could have stood in for The Blob.

How does a hundred-and-eighty-pound man turn into a ninety-pound wolf? Where does the leftover ninety go? Does he park it in the umbrella stand overnight?

She had courage enough, but little imagination; or she would not have forgotten joy, whatever the weight on her.

She had always been the least of the sisters, called Beauty because she had no other, better characteristic to name her as herself.

I didn't like it.…Oh, right, I thought, good one. The train is roaring toward you and the villain is twirling his moustache and you're fussing that he's tied you to the track with the wrong kind of rope.

It was daylight. I wondered dispassionately if I might be getting a sunburn, but I rarely burned anyway, and the idea in the present state of affairs, like worrying about a hangnail while you are being chased by an axe murderer, seemed so ludicrous I couldn't be bothered.

there were no bones in his body, only tunes, and no blood, but poetry.

when you are happy, when you have never been happy before, when you hadn't even known you weren't happy, it is hard to believe that it won't all go away again, isn't it?

the ancient key had been found for the ancient lock and the key remembered it's business and the lock remembered it's master so the gate was ravished opened

Her words flew like butterflies through the vibrant air of the hall; and the company was quiet, as if watching them.

A writer who isn't writing isn't really alive.

I will miss the horses, said Beauty a little wistfully. Perhaps you will become fond of the goat, said Jeweltongue. Or even the chickens. Does one ever grow fond of chickens? said Beauty dubiously. Perhaps the goat.