Top 155 Quotes & Sayings by Lloyd Alexander - Page 3

Evil cannot be conquered by wishing.

-"He loved her...It was noble of him. It was beautiful." -"It was stupid.

I can't make sense out of that girl," he said to the bard, "Can you?" "Never mind," Fflewddur said, "We aren't really expected to.

Ever since human beings learned to talk to each other, we've been fascinated with storytelling of every kind. Blessed (or cursed) with insatiable curiosity, we have to know what happens next.

She has given you something of value: the truth in her heart.

For Wayfarers still journeying, for Wanderers at rest.

I came to fantasy fairly late. For some ten years, I had been happily writing fiction and non-fiction for adults. But I always loved fantasy, whether for adults or young people; and at that particular point in my life, I wanted to try it, to understand it, as part of the process of learning to be a writer. The results were beyond anything I could have foreseen. As I've said often and elsewhere, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life.

He [the cat] liked to peep into the refrigerator and risk having his head shut in by the closing door. He also climbed to the top of the stove, discontinuing the practice after he singed his tail.

No, no," said Taran slowly, "It would be folly to think of attacking them." He smiled quickly at Fflewddur. "The bards would sing of us," he admitted, "but we'd be in no position to appreciate it.

I can't single out one of my books or characters as a favorite. In the same way that I don't have a favorite kidney, my books are organically all part of myself. I might even say that put all together, the books are one ongoing, developing story - which, not coincidentally, happens to be my own lifestory.

I can't stand people who say 'I told you so.' That's worse than somebody coming up and eating your dinner before you have a chance to sit down.

Who but lovers dream alike?

Paradoxically, in fantasy for young people I was able to express my own deepest feelings and attitudes more than I had ever done in writing for adults.

What! I don't care about being a princess! And since I'm already a young lady, how else could I behave? That's like asking a fish not to swim!" ~Princess Eilonwy, daughter of Angharad, daughter of Regat, of the Royal house of Llyr

In the race of men is much greed and envy; but of truth, little.

A crown is more discomfort than adornment. If you have learned that, you have already learned much.

...alas, raising a young lady is a mystery even beyond an enchanter's skill.

I saw myself. . . in the time I watched, I saw strength and frailty, pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly much. Of intentions many good ones; but many more left undone. On this alas, I saw myself a man like any other. But this too I saw . . . Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same.You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.

A taste for adventure is by no means a masculine monopoly.

There is more honor in a field well plowed than in a field steeped in blood.

He will not succeed in this," Taran said. "Somehow, we must find a way to escape. We dare not lose hope." "I agree absolutely," Fflewddur answered. "Your general idea is excellent; it's only the details that are lacking.

If we nourish imagination, we nourish everything else.

You know how chickens are, imagining the world coming to an end one moment, then pecking corn the next.

If I fret over tomorrow, I'll have little joy today.

I know that some readers think (The High King) should have ended differently. I cried for three days afterwards.

Favorite books and authors while growing up - I'd need a book to list them all. For the sake of brevity: Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, world's mythology, the Arthurian legends. And the unabridged dictionary. And they're still my favorites. They get better each time I read them.

I have never known courage to be judged by the length of a man's hair. Or, for the matter of that, whether he has any hair at all.

I intend to follow the path of virtue. It will not be overcrowded.

Story, finally, is humanity's autobiography.

And thus did an Assistant Pig-Keeper become High King of Prydain.

The dear girl, I fear, may be contemplating some alarming, disruptive perhaps dangerous project. In which case, I would naturally do all in my power to keep her from any such rash or foolhardy enterprise – unless she wished me to accompany her.

King Constantine IX of Regia had been killed three times and was bored with it. He wanted a bath.

How easy it is to think well of ourselves. Until the moment is upon us, we can never be certain.

If life is a loom, the pattern you weave is not so easily unraveled.

If I do find pride, I'll not find it in what I was or what I am, but what I may become. Not in my birth, but in myself.