Lloyd Alexander Quotes

"Once," he added, "you told me that the seeking counts more than the finding. So, too, must the striving count more than the gain."

Is a man truly what he see himself to be?'

'Only if what he sees is true.

The ocean filled the footprints where a boy and cat had stood.

"There is much to be known," said Adaon, "and above all much to be loved, be it the turn of the seasons or the shape of a river pebble. Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts."

"I ask no comfort," Taran replied, "but the truth, be it harsh or happy."
"Ah, my sweet robin," said Orddu, "for the finding of that, nothing is harder. There are those who have spent lifetimes at it, and many in worse plight than yours."

I think we should always remember that reading — the experience of a book — is a very private, very personal kind of thing. Sometimes the best response to such an experience is: silence.

Its powers?' Dallben answered with a sad smile. 'My dear boy, this is a bit of metal hammered into a rather unattractive shape; it could better have been a pruning hook or a plow iron. Its powers? Like all weapons, only those held by him who wields it. What yours may be, I can in no wise say.

A man's life weighs more then glory, and a price paid in blood is a heavy reckoning.

When imagination fails, compassion and humaneness dwindle and atrophy along with it. Unleavened by imagination, the variety and richness of life turn into flat abstractions; people become objects to be manipulated — with the social consequences we know all too well.

The thing that is maybe the real difference, the fundamental difference, is that in adult literature you can have a literature of despair and end the work without any hope; you can have a literature of the absurd in which life is pointless, meaningless...In children's literature you can have a tragic ending...nevertheless, maybe what happens makes some kind of sense; maybe there is hope. We have got to pull out of ourselves some kind of hope. This is the key difference between writing for adults and children.

But it's very thoughtful of you to say that. It shows a kind heart, and I think that's so much more important than being clever.

When prophecies give no help, men must find it themselves.

All agreed that Quickset was the cleverest cat in the world. And, since Quickset had the same opinion, it was surely true.

It would be a shame if you were killed. I should be very sorry. I know I wouldn't like it to happen to me.

"Surely you can entrust your task to your friends."
"No," said Taran, after a long pause, "I have taken it on myself through my own choice."
"If that is so," answered Medwyn, "then you can give it up through your own choice."