|
bb9e4f1
|
the sheep] sidled up beside him and bumped him lovingly with its head. Val looked at it sadly. "I am sorry, you ugly creature," he said. "I have not used my magic in a long time, and I am very out of practice."
|
|
magic
sheep
|
Robin McKinley |
|
f5126a8
|
And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
e326448
|
They could at least part with love. It was like Tor to make the gesture; her father, for all his kindness, was too proud--or too much a king; and she was too proud, or too bitter, or too young.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
0247555
|
There are stories about "good" vampires like there are stories about the loathly lady who, after a hearty meal of raw horse and hunting hound and maybe the odd huntsman or archer, followed by an exciting night in the arms of her chosen knight turns into the kindest and most beautiful lady the world has ever seen...
|
|
romance
vampires
|
Robin McKinley |
|
9d4003f
|
Reread your favorite novel, the one you only let yourself read any more when you're sick in bed.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
7db0d8b
|
I liked that: a little pressure on the understood boundaries of yourself.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
7578e61
|
It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered; it just is, like sunlight or mountains. It is for human beings to see the shadows behind the light, and the light behind the shadows. It is, perhaps, why dogs have people, and people have dogs.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
457afb4
|
She wondered if her father had awakened yet, if he had missed her, if Jeweltongue would tell him she was only out in the garden, if Tea-cosy's wretchedness would give them all away immediately. She wondered if she had been right to guess that her father would not mend till she left--and that he would mend when she did. Had the Beast sent his illness? Did he watch them from his palace? What a sorcerer could and could not do could never quite..
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
cde33a3
|
breaking tradition always comes with a noise like mountains falling.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
3cba019
|
Cornbread?" He brightened immediately. I was as bad as Paulie, really, despite how long I'd been doing this. Someone wants to eat my food, they're automatically my friend. Someone who doesn't want to eat my food, they automatically aren't. This is an awkward attitude if you hang out a lot with a vampire."
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
12c40e8
|
Nothing?' said Corlath. 'I said there were two things. I have told you the first. You told us what you saw as you saw it. But this is the second thing: you spoke in the Old Tongue, what we call the Language of the Gods, that none knows any more but kings and sorcerers, and those they wish to teach it to. The language I just spoke to you, that you did not recognize- I was repeating the words you had said yourself, a moment before.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
dacc777
|
Would it help perhaps if I told you that, had your father returned to me alone, I would have sent him on his way unharmed?" "You would!" I said; it was half a shriek. "You mean that I came here for nothing?" A shadowy movement like the shaking of a great shaggy head. "No. Not what you would count as nothing. He would have returned to you, and you would have been glad, but you also would have been ashamed, because you had sent him, as you th..
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
af6390b
|
Narknon put a paw on Harry's chest and began licking her face; a hunting-cat's tongue is much harsher than a housecat's. Harry thought her skin would crumble and peel off, but she didn't have the strength to push her away.
|
|
fantasy-fiction
|
Robin McKinley |
|
4228ba2
|
Muffin cups in my bakery were real sorcerer's apprentice material, like the dough for the cinnamon rolls every morning could have stood in for The Blob.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
de80234
|
Little John: I would come too. He might want knocking in a stream to cool his anger. Much: I will come too, to fish him out again, and to reassure him that not all of us have this queer craving for hurling folks in water.
|
|
much
|
Robin McKinley |
|
e3431f6
|
Mr. Responsible Media was looking rebellious, but this was my country. I was the Cinnamon Roll Queen and most of those assembled were my devoted subjects.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
5f5b3bb
|
The most serious drawback to the telling-nothing approach is that it made that much more of a mystery of what had happened, and the nature of gossip abhors a vacuum of the unexplained.
|
|
mystery
sunshine
unexplained
|
Robin McKinley |
|
d6e9329
|
Post-traumatic shock, phooey. Seemed to me the trauma was trotting right along with me, like a dog on a leash with its owner. I was the dog. I
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
e116446
|
but she brooded not only about how to tackle her father, but also about what, precisely, she was setting out to do. Test the fire-repellent properties of her discovery. Toward killing dragons. Did she really want to kill dragons? Yes. Why? Pause. To be doing something. To be doing something better than anyone else was doing it.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
856701c
|
And everybody dreams about vampires; we grow up dreaming about them. They're the first and worst monster that lives under everybody's bed.
|
|
nightmares
vampires
|
Robin McKinley |
|
4495253
|
It is not so easy as running and not running.
|
|
trauma
|
Robin McKinley |
|
888a879
|
I believe that the one thing that has come out of this -- extraordinary -- meeting this morning is an awareness that we have, perhaps, been careless about the critical relationship between human and pegasus, careless in our that no better bond than what we are accustomed to can exist. The king agrees with you that his daughter and Lrrianay's son suggest a different way. But the king's view, and indeed hope, for that way is diametrically o..
|
|
outburst
pegasus-and-human-relationship
|
Robin McKinley |
|
8d5fdd8
|
Sylvi wished she could gouge out the look in Dorogin's stony eyes, and change the course of history. She wished Fthoom had been eaten by a sea monster.
|
|
gouge
wish
|
Robin McKinley |
|
526103f
|
The Beast turned back to me. I could look at him fairly steadily this time. After a moment he said harshly: "I am very ugly, am I not?" "You are certainly, uh, very hairy," I said. "You are being polite," he said. "Well, yes," I conceded. "But then you called me beautiful, last night." He made a noise somewhere between a roar and a bark, and after an anxious minute, I decided it was probably a laugh. "You do not believe me then?" he inquire..
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
1db6b19
|
When you're feeding the second coachload of tourists that day you aren't thinking about the birthday party for fifty next week.
|
|
coping
food
life
life-lessons
worry
|
Robin McKinley |
|
2e15a8b
|
It is halfway true that if you are involved in a family coffeehouse you don't have a life.
|
|
family-business
family-restaurant
restaurant
|
Robin McKinley |
|
7b6c344
|
The rose shadows said that they loved the sun, but that they also loved the dark, where their roots grew through the lightless mystery of the earth. The roses said: You do not have to choose.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
26648e9
|
She had courage enough, but little imagination; or she would not have forgotten joy, whatever the weight on her.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |
|
fc03ba0
|
The rich smell of the rose was almost visible; I fancied it lent a rosy edge to the shadows cast by the firelight.
|
|
roses
scents
|
Robin McKinley |
|
c04d235
|
I wasn't grateful. You want to talk cranky, coitus interruptus takes me well beyond cranky. My engorged labia felt like they were pressing on my brain--what there was of my brain--and if I didn't get to fuck someone, something, now--a vampire would do--I was going to fucking explode. My cunt ached like a bruise. Beyond cranky, rather fortunately, doesn't transmute into embarrassment. It transmutes into fury. As my blood pressure began to re..
|
|
cunt
|
Robin McKinley |
|
597c651
|
at four o'clock in the morning, when the world is full of magic, things may be safely said that may not be uttered at any other time, so long as the person who listens believes in the same kind of magic as the person who speaks.
|
|
|
Robin McKinley |