Peter S. Beagle Quotes

I love whom I love

They know these mornings well and love them desperately because they cannot last - these people who know that nothing lasts.

"Schmendrick smiled then. "I'm no man," he said. "I'm a magician with no magic, and that's no one at all.

"No," he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a king's voice... whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give.

"You were the one who taught me," he said. "I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you."

She touched you twice,' he said in a little while. 'The first touch was to bring you to life again, but the second was for you.

"I love you," Laura said hopelessly. "I'd love you if you were afraid of everything in the world."

"Marriage isn't like football, like bocce. One isn't good at it, nobody has a special gift. You stumble along, and if there is enough love — " she smiled at him — "you learn."

"Unicorns are not to be forgiven." The magician felt himself growing giddy with jealousy, not only of the touch but of something like a secret that was moving between Molly and the unicorn. "Unicorns are for beginnings," he said, "for innocence and purity, for newness. Unicorns are for young girls."

Molly was stroking the unicorn's throat as timidly as though she were blind. She dried her grimy tears on the white mane. "You don't know much about unicorns," she said.

The baloney weighed the raven down, and the shopkeeper almost caught him as he whisked out the delicatessen door.

I am a hero. It is a trade, no more, like weaving or brewing, and like them it has its own tricks and knacks and small arts. There are ways of perceiving witches, and of knowing poison streams; there are certain weak spots that all dragons have, and certain riddles that hooded strangers tend to set you. But the true secret of being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock at the witch's door when she is away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. Heroes know about order, about happy endings — heroes know that some things are better than others.

"Still the king would have turned away, but Schmendrick touched his arm and leaned near. "It's true, you know," he whispered. "But for him — but for them all — the tale would have worked out quite another way, and who can say that the ending would have been even as happy as this? You must be their king, and you must rule them as kindly as you would a braver and more faithful folk. For they are your fate.

...but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes.

"Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with their hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough"

"Death takes what man would keep," said the butterfly, "and leaves what man would lose. Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks. I warm my hands before the fire of life and get four-way relief."