Peter S Beagle Quotes

We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.

The last unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.

...no place is more enchanted than where a unicorn has been born.

Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.

Take me with you. For laughs, for luck, for the unknown. Take me with you.

You ever want to see real witchcraft, you watch people protecting their comfort, their beliefs.

Unicorn. Old French, unicorne. Latin, unicornis. Literally, one-horned: unus, one and cornu,a horn. A fabulous animal resembling a horse with one horn.

Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.

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

The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things...Things must happen when it is time for them to happen.

What use is wizardry if it cannot save a Unicorn?

Farewell,' she said. 'I hope you hear many more songs' - which was the best way she could think of to say good-bye to a butterfly.

And what good is it to me that you're here now? Where where you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?

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.

The tune was wailing and mournful, almost flagrantly so, and the total effect was of a heartbroken piccolo being parted forever from its bagpipe lover.

Ravens bring things to people. We're like that. It's our nature. We don't like it.

It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is.

There are no happy endings, because nothing ends.

I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.

What do men know? Because they have seen no unicorns for a while does not mean we have all vanished.

She said, "I will go no farther." "There is no choice. We can only go on." The magician said again. "We can only go on.

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of anything. Whatever you have been, you are mine now. I can hold you.

The moon was gone, but to the magician's eyes the unicorn was the moon, cold and white and very old, lighting his way to safety, or to madness.

A Clock is not time; it's numbers and springs. Pay it no mind.

There are honest people in the world, but only because the devil considers their asking prices ridiculous.

there never is a happy ending because nothing ever ends.

The Unicorn Sonata... tells us that our true home is often right around the corner, if we'd only open our eyes - and our ears - to find it.

What is plucked will grow again, What is slain lives on, What is stolen will remain-- What is gone is gone.

Wisdom is finding joy in bewilderment

The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds. Molly picked up a rock.

Haggard, I would not be you for all the world," he declared. "You have let your doom in by the front door, although it will not depart that way. (...) Farewell, poor Haggard, farewell!

Walking by yourself in the rain is for college kids who think loneliness makes poets.

- and you are truly human now. You can love, and fear, and forbid things to be what they are, and overact.

Love was generous precisely because it could never be immortal.

Whatever can die is beautiful — more beautiful than a unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world. Do you understand me?

Envy nobody. It is the true secret of happiness, or at least the only one I know. (By Moonlight)

Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl.

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.

..no meal is good enough to justify all the money and effort wasted in preparing it. It is an illusion and an expense. Live as I do, undeceived.

I fear it, for her sake. It would mean that she too is a wanderer now, and that is a fate for human beings, not for unicorns. But I hope, of course I hope.

But I'm always dreaming, even when I'm awake; it is never finished." -the Lady Amalthea, from The Last Unicorn

As for you and your heart and the things you said and didn't say, she will remember them all when men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits.

He thought, or said, or sang, I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full.

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

Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger, And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved.

The most professional curse ever snarled or croaked or thundered can have no effect on a pure heart.

We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.

What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn?

Avicenna California...Museum of my twisted youth, vault of my dearest and most disgusting memories.

No," he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a king's voice... whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give.