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f601490
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Galanna's gift, it was dryly said, was to be impossible to please.
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Robin McKinley |
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c896844
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No, but I am working up to telling you that there is no possibility of there being done what ought to be done-
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Robin McKinley |
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9c1a155
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Her betrothed is a lout, her father is a boor; and now her brother is trailing around looking like a thunderstorm about to burst. Men are not sensible creatures.' 'Thank you,' said Robin.
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men
marian
robin
will
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Robin McKinley |
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99d0ec6
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Balthazar was disappointed by all the walking, but he was accustomed to such disappointment. -Hellhound
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Robin McKinley |
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3c6e402
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said the pegasus.
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pegasus
speak
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Robin McKinley |
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f98b46c
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Betrayal would be a different sort of sick.
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Robin McKinley |
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85dc93f
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What this world doesn't have is the three-wishes, go-to-the-ball-and-meet-your-prince, happily-ever-after kind of magic. We have all the mangling and malevolent kinds. Who *invented* this system?
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wishes
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Robin McKinley |
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184d167
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Maybe I should try to be grateful at having been spared intimacy with the most dangerous of the Others. Gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'under the dark.
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Robin McKinley |
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7203ece
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There were some things that took life and broke it, not merely into meaninglessness, but with active malice flung the pieces farther, into hell.
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Robin McKinley |
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b5e53b9
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The man paused and added with a grin, "He also wishes your porter's head on a silver plate for not opening the gate at once upon his herald's declaration of his visit. This tale of threatening brigands is all very well, but can't I see he's the sheriff?"
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Robin McKinley |
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fa997db
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Don't you being short?' she blurted. He spread his small hands and looked at them. 'I am a magician, not a princess. A pony costs less to keep than a horse, which means I can buy more books.' He paused. 'It is not always a bad thing, to be overlooked.
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overlooked
short
princess
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Robin McKinley |
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6d9a1bb
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The burden she carried was different from yours, and it had worn on her for many years. When I knew her she had forgotten joy, although I believe Arlbeth gave her a little back again.
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Robin McKinley |
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e43814c
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The sheep, I guess demented with love, didn't object to this at all. Casimir somehow found time to pull up some grass for it, and it lay down and munched its grass and then chewed its cud like hanging out with dogs [...] was something it always did. Maybe it thought other sheep were boring and that it had finally found its spiritual home.
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humor
sheep
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Robin McKinley |
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b9e6a94
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The chain round my neck gleamed in the daylight too. It looked more like gold this morning, but if I stirred it with a finger it had a queer iridescent quality not at all like real gold, not that I had much acquaintance with the stuff. I had always favored plastic and rhinestones.
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Robin McKinley |
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f743379
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Gods of all the world, say something," she cried, and Talat startled beneath her. "I love you," said Luthe. "I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting. Go quickly, for I cannot bear this." She closed her legs violently around the nervous Talat, and he leaped into a gallop. Long after Aerin was out of sight, Luthe lay full length upon the ground, and pressed his ear to it, and list..
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Robin McKinley |
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2955beb
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In fact, she would have added the rider that she wasn't sure it could be done at all, getting to know someone at any succession of such parties, however prolonged.
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Robin McKinley |
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2c252ca
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It had not been a very cheerful journey, not the least for the western excursion into Outlander territory, where a stubborn and pompous old man had refused to listen to the truth; but Corlath had expected what he found and-she thought-saw no use in being discouraged.
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Robin McKinley |
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6856c97
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There was an idea much beloved and written about by this country's philosophers that magic had to do with negotiating the balance between earth and air and water; which is to say that things with legs or wings were out of balance with their earth element by walking around on feet or, worse, flying above the earth in the thin substance of air, obviously entirely unsuitable for the support of solid flesh. The momentum all this inappropriate m..
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magic
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Robin McKinley |
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b6ab1d5
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I feel like a potato that's recently been mashed,"she said." --
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Robin McKinley |
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22d71db
|
Even Mongo liked him, although Mongo likes everybody. (Also Mongo was so thrilled with himsel for staying in the dog bed till I'd released him that was going to blow his mood.)
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humor
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Robin McKinley |
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31ddf0a
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But it is not, as we say when we are being diplomatic, a fruitful source of inquiry.
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Robin McKinley |
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f4556da
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One has various things in the back of one's mind. Occasionally an opportunity presents itself to bring one forward. Most of these opportunities come to nothing. Once in a very great while one -- or two -- do come to something.
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opportunities
one-s-mind
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Robin McKinley |
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af67e18
|
Yes. Isn't it ... silly ... how ... upsetting ... just thinking can be?" "It's not silly at all. The insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are."
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Robin McKinley |
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688718f
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It was blissful, spending time with someone who would leave you alone. I loved him for it. And I was happy to repay in kind. It had never occurred to me that leaving someone alone could harden into a habit that could become a barrier.
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Robin McKinley |
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e671548
|
She thought, I need no cup. I am Chalice. I am filling with the grief and hurt and fear of my demesne; the shattered earthlines weigh me down; I am brimming with the needs of my people.
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identity
empowerment
earth-mother
self-realization
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Robin McKinley |
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8bcd335
|
Despair was a private weakness she could not afford to indulge.
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loneliness
strength
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Robin McKinley |
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57755dc
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At first Lissar merely ran away; away from the yellow city, away from the prince whom she loved with both halves of her broken heart.
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Robin McKinley |
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1b0294a
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No wonder he'd never really finished becoming one of us. We just thought it was because he was half Japanese, and lived in a huge house on the other side of town with a dad who was never home and who none of our parents had ever met. And possibly because he was an arrogant moody stuck-on-himself creepazoid And here he wasn't even a real gizmohead. He was just a grind. And a werewolf.
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werewolf
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Robin McKinley |
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826ba5d
|
I loved every one of these people. And I couldn't take another minute of their company.
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Robin McKinley |
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70971b5
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Dogs are very comforting when your world has exploded.
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Robin McKinley |
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7d36c1d
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HIs riders knew most of this, even if they did not see it with the dire clarity Corlath was forced to....
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Robin McKinley |
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d5bbde8
|
She was ashamed. She would not--she would not--be frightened of him: he was what he was, and he had made a promise he would keep.
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Robin McKinley |
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27df5b6
|
I'm your friend, Sunshine," he said. "Everything else is just static on the line."
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Robin McKinley |
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02c7169
|
Swords. That is no faenorn ; that is slaughter." The Grand Seneschal shrugged. "The Master did not protest. And, indeed, what weapon could he have suggested that would suit him any better?" "Fire," she said. "He would not," said the Seneschal. "You know he would not."
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sportsmanship
dueling
challenge
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Robin McKinley |
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e8ffb4b
|
It is that I cannot see what I am doing or why, and it is unsettling always to live only in the moment as it passes. Oh, I know one never sees ahead or behind. But I see even less. It is like being blindfolded when everyone else in the room is not. No one can see outside the room - but everyone else can see the room. I would like to take my blindfold off.
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Robin McKinley |
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39092a0
|
It was Ebon's turn now, and he stepped forward and gave the pegasus' great clarion neigh -- far more like a trumpet than a horse's neigh; hollow bones are wonderful for resonance -- and swept his wings forward to touch, or almost touch, his alula-hands to her temples before he gave his own speech, in the half-humming, half-whuffling syllables the pegasi made when they spoke aloud, only she could understand what he was saying in silent speec..
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hee-ho
ho-hee
speech
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Robin McKinley |
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27f1206
|
She wished for Ebono as she wished every time she saw Lrrianay at her father's shoulder, or any pegasus at any bond-mate's shoulder, or any pegasus. Or any time she took a breath, she wished again for Ebon.
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wished
missing-someone
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Robin McKinley |
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ac63629
|
There was something very odd about the carpet this morning... More hedgehogs? Many more hedgehogs? Positively a lake of hedgehogs?
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Robin McKinley |
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43edf60
|
It is all very well to say that all princesses are good and beautiful and charming; but this is usually a determined optimism on everybody's part rather than the truth. After all, if a girl is a princess, she is undeniably a princess, and the best must be made of it; and how much pleasanter it would be if she were good and beautiful. There's always hope that if enough people believe as though she is, a little of it will rub off.
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humor
the-door-in-the-hedge
princesses
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Robin McKinley |
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11c3f0f
|
Golden arrow? And what would we do with a golden arrow? Give it to Alan for a lute string? I could hang it around my neck on a chain, perhaps, and let it stab me in the ribs when I tried to sit.
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Robin McKinley |
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18f96ad
|
And what was I panicking about anyway? Being left alone with myself? I'd rather have a vampire around? Well. Yes.
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Robin McKinley |
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c5dd75b
|
Robin: I'm sure you've learnt to bake, but you have not learned to handle Much. The phrases that you need my lady, are "No", "No you can't", and "No, get out of here before I throw something at you"."
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robin-hood
|
Robin McKinley |
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8429fd1
|
What ... you're a hedgehog!" It stirred at her touch and then curled up tighter. "You're a very small hedgehog. And you shouldn't be wandering round enchanted palaces looking for adventures."
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Robin McKinley |
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b680410
|
This place felt like home; not her home perhaps, but someone's home, accustomed to shelter and keep and befriend its master.
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Robin McKinley |