Peter S. Beagle

"What happened instead was that the tree fell in love with him and began to murmur fondly of the joy to be found in the eternal embrace of a red oak. "Always, always," it sighed, "faithful beyond any man's deserving. I will keep the color of your eyes when no other in the world remembers your name. There is no immortality but a tree's love.

Speaking of livers,' the unicorn said. 'Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that.

Sitting up all night would be pointless if somebody you loved wasn't sitting up with you, picking out music to play and helping you kill the bourbon. Walking by yourself in the rain is for college kids who think loneliness makes poets.

"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."

"Like that Chinese monkey trying to grab the moon in the water," Uncle Chaim said to me once. "That's me, a Chinese monkey."
(Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel)

How terrible to be forgotten by the god that made you, even if you're just a room. How could you love something that could do that anytime?

How's the Angel of Death supposed to do his job with clipped wings?

I always say perseverance is nine-tenths of any art — not that it's much help to be nine-tenths an artist, of course.

From that first moment of doubt, there was no peace for her; from the time she first imagined leaving her forest, she could not stand in one place without wanting to be somewhere else. She trotted up and down beside her pool, restless and unhappy. Unicorns are not meant to make choices. She said no, and yes, and no again, day and night, and for the first time she began to feel the minutes crawling over her like worms.

"The unicorn was so startled and so happy to hear her name spoken at last that she overlooked the remark about the horse. "Oh, you know me!" she cried, and the breath of her delight blew the butterfly twenty feet away."

there never is a happy ending because nothing ever ends.

"The unicorn halted in her slow, desperate round of the cage, realizing for the first time that the magician understood her speech. He smiled, and she saw that his face was frighteningly young for a grown man-untraveled by time, unvisited by grief or wisdom. "I know you," he said."

"The magician was studying her face with his green eyes. "Your face is wet," he said worriedly. "I hope that's spray. If you've become human enough to cry, then no magic in the world — oh, it must be spray. Come with me. It had better be spray.

Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name.

There are no happy endings, he knew, because nothing ends; and if there were any being dispensed, a great many worthier people would be in line for them long before Michael and Laura and himself. But the happiness of the unworthy and the happiness of the so-so is as fragile and self-centered and dear as the happiness of the righteous and the worthy; and the happiness of the living is no less short and desperate and forgotten than the joys of the dead.