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beaea4f
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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." But"
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Peter S. Beagle |
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9db9edf
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I don't think I could ever see her closely," the sentinel replied, "however close she came."
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Peter S. Beagle |
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ed1ced5
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That is most of it, being a wizard--seeing and listening.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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519d1d2
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The long road hurried to nowhere and had no end.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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4700413
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for no one can keep a unicorn in his head for long;
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Peter S. Beagle |
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fbbd8c3
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There's more meaning than magic to this." The"
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Peter S. Beagle |
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c849793
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Anyone can say he's a magician these days. The old standards are gone, the old values have been abandoned. Besides, a real magician has a beard.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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dea802a
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Do you know what I am, butterfly?" the unicorn asked hopefully, and he replied. "Excellent well, you're a fishmonger. You're my everything, you are my sunshine, you are old and gray and full of sleep, you're my pickle-face, consumptive Mary Jane." He paused, fluttering his wings against the wind, and added conversationally, "Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name."
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Peter S. Beagle |
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6663d0c
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What I forget not only ceases to exist, but never really existed in the first place.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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50c19ea
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It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is,
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Peter S. Beagle |
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19bf6aa
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We are used men, spent men--but if you would see miracles, you have only to request the impossible of us. We will become young again if you wish it so.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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eb8258d
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I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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cf5a5b0
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How terrible it would be if all my people had been turned human by well-meaning wizards--exiled,
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Peter S. Beagle |
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99bf1c4
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The universe lies to our senses, and they lie to us, and how can we ourselves be anything but liars? For myself, I trust neither the message nor the messenger; neither what I am told, not what I see. There may be truth somewhere but it never gets down to me.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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12b6016
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It all seems a bit unfair, my lord, begging your pardon. What could we have done to save the unicorns? We were afraid of the Red Bull. What could we have done?" "One word might have been enough," King Lir replied. "You'll never know now." He"
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Peter S. Beagle |
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6d5abf3
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She was one woman who knew what to do with a slight moral edge. The
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Peter S. Beagle |
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f1e7c27
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But I would have chosen any other than this for my prison. A rhinoceros is as ugly as a human being, and it too is going to die, but at least it never thinks that it is beautiful.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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4ed768e
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They broaden our outlook... set us to looking inward...
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Peter S. Beagle |
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ad23659
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He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt. He is not a bad man at all. And yet--
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Peter S. Beagle |
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b014c06
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To the unicorn he spoke without grooming or ordering his thoughts, without concern as to what such a creature might think of him--as though, in fact, to the oldest of old friends.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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cbe82ec
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Once you had your man, you let all your accomplishments go. You don't sew or sing any more, you haven't illuminated a manuscript in years--and
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Peter S. Beagle |
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796f88e
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The ludicrousness of admonishing an immortal creature to be careful was a little more than his sense of the absurd could tolerate.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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d12db60
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What magical thing could you want so badly that they take you away from the known world for wanting it?
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Peter S. Beagle |
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0a25305
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I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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c2fbe2c
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Why are you hoping to kill the unicorns? Why would you not just take pictures, videos, with your cell phones, your fancy digital cameras, and let them be?" The young men looked at him, and then at each other, in plain astonishment They were not bad or vicious young men. They replied by turns, but they might as well have been speaking in unison. "What would be the point of that? Without the horn, the skull, all mounted on the wall, what woul..
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Peter S. Beagle |
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c215da2
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The moral of that story, I think, is that being poor will kill you. Or perhaps the moral is that brides never fare well in stories, and one should avoid either being a bride, or being in a story. After all, stories can sense happiness and snuff it out like a candle.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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e48de0a
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He wrote a poem about that, about not knowing so many things in a life. The poem was a failure, as far as he was ever concerned; he felt so about most of the poems he wrote during that time. Which was odd, when he thought much about it, because it was a really good time, taken all in all.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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ec19f09
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He never allowed himself to grow less vigilant; but happiness is the old enemy of watchfulness, and Bianchi was practically happy. Growling contentment is not the same thing, but he hadn't known.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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fb13388
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Can you write a poem about someone's snores? About trying not to sneeze when her hair tickles my nose? About that one tiny barely audible fart against my leg?
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Peter S. Beagle |
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f247938
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They may be apart sometimes, they may come and go as they choose--what can love be like when you live forever?--but they wait for each other, they find each other, they are together always!
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Peter S. Beagle |
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ed2b728
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La Signora looked into his eyes, as she had done before, but this time Bianchi looked back and lost himself in a bright wilderness: a forest filled with glowing, shifting shadows, where nothing threatened, but nothing he knew applied, nothing he recognized held its shape for long. He felt himself altering, amending, as he wandered there--for how long?--until he had to make himself return while there was still a himself to command. And that ..
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Peter S. Beagle |
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3772083
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Now I knew you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will
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Peter S. Beagle |
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4b6f4a4
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What is plucked will grow again, What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain-- What is gone is gone.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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7d5b2ab
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She had never minded being alone, never seeing another unicorn,
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Peter S. Beagle |
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d96d4c1
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There is never a happy ending because nothing ever ends.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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e50f6e3
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It's whatever we can get, then," she said, "on whatever terms we can get it."
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Peter S. Beagle |
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4dc4e0c
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As my date--Harvey? Harvard?--brags about his alma mater and Manhattan penthouse, I take a bite of overpriced kale and watch his ugly thoughts swirl overhead.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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f256413
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Oh, Lor' bless ou , mum,' Azazel answered quickly, 'I am laden with all sorts of gimcracks and gaudy gewgaws, fripperies, filigrees, and fooleries, not to mention frivolities, fancies, and fiddledeedees. I have all kinds of iridescent idiocies, and any number of oddities, ordinary or obsolescent, as well as a fair supply of spangled sillinesses, though I may as well warn you, they're taking those off the market, and I won't be able to get y..
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gimcracks
oddities
peddler
sale
nonsense
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Peter S. Beagle |
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532e78a
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As the Empire wades into the East River hand in hand with the Chrysler, other love-struck structures begin to talk. We're watching from the windows as apartment towers lean in to gossip, stretching laundry lines finger to finger. Grand Central, as stout and elegant as a survivor of the Titanic, stands up, shakes her skirts, and pays a visit to Pennsylvania Station, that Beaux-Arts bangle. The Flatiron and Cleopatra's Needle shiver with sudd..
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Peter S. Beagle |
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21d8250
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I have my power at last, but the world is still too heavy for me to move, though my friend Lir might think otherwise.
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Peter S. Beagle |
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34f68c9
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There is nothing like you anywhere among all the stones in the sky, do you realize that? You are the wonder of the cosmos, possibly for embarrassing reasons, but anyway a wonder.
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wonder
embarrassing
stones
sky
unique
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Peter S. Beagle |
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1aae4ac
|
Her face was a stranger's face, which was as it should be. Love each other from the day we are born to the day we die, we are still strangers every minute, and nobody should forget that, even though we have to.
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lukassa
tikat
stranger
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Peter S. Beagle |
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dad9137
|
I hate selkie stories. They're always about how you went up to the attic to look for a book, and you found a disgusting old coat and brought it downstairs between finger and thumb and said "What's this?", and you never saw your mom again."
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Peter S. Beagle |
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ddeb892
|
At last he said to me, 'My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known.
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peter-s-beagle
the-last-unicorn
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Peter S. Beagle |