Patricia A. McKillip Quotes

But dear, you hate to sew.

I will be married soon. Lady Thiel says a woman with needlework in her hands is generally assumed to have no other thoughts in her head and can safely harbor any number of improprieties. That will come in handy, especially when I'm married to a wizard.

I thought of you with your hair silver as snow all through that cold, slow journey from Sirle. I felt you troubled deep within me, and there was no other place in the world I would rather have been than in the cold night riding to you. When you opened your gates to me, I was home.

Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.

Water has its moods, flowing or still; it can lure you like a lover, or look as bleak as a broken heart.

Love is what we say it is," she said fiercely. "That's all I know. That's all anyone knows about it. I'm sorry.

The giant Grof was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there. -Cyrin

Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.

Night is not something to endure until dawn. It is an element, like wind or fire. Darkness is its own kingdom; it moves to its own laws, and many living things dwell in it.

That's the beginning of magic. Let your imagination run and follow it.

What concern of mine are your affairs? Or Coren’s? What kind of peace would there be in me or in my house if I took interest in the wars and feuds that you weave in the courts below? I do not understand such things. I understand only what lies within my walls.

Shall I add a man to my collection?

The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there

Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored.

She is our moon. Our tidal pull. She is the rich deep beneath the sea, the buried treasure, the expression in the owl's eye, the perfume in the wild rose. She is what the water says when it moves.

At its best, fantasy rewards the reader with a sense of wonder about what lies within the heart of the commonplace world. The greatest tales are told over and over, in many ways, through centuries. Fantasy changes with the changing times, and yet it is still the oldest kind of tale in the world, for it began once upon a time, and we haven't heard the end of it yet.