“And if my choice is to sit graciously in my best robes and accept the inevitable or to bail a sea with a bucket, give me the bucket.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“Laughter went on and on, like sunlight and stone, even if the human beings who laughed did not.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“We are all only mortal," said the Master, even more slowly. "We do only what we can do. All the Elemental priests have certain teachings in common: one of them is that everyone, every human, every bird, badger and salamander, every blade of grass and every acorn, is doing the best it can. This is the priests' definition of mortality: the circumstance of doing what one can is that of doing one's best. Only the immortals have the luxury of furlough. Doing one's best is hard work; we rely on our surroundings because we must; when our surroundings change, we stumble. If you are running as fast as you can, only a tiny roughness of the ground may make you fall.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“And when I looked up and saw you as you were, in no gaudy robes and bearing no solemn goblet - suddenly I had hope.'
'I did not see you looking,' said Mirasol.
'I did no want you to see,' said the Master.'And I looked away quickly, because I knew the hope was false. I knew - I think I knew - that it was not really about hope, it was about looking at you. And so I looked at Horuld, and at his sword, and reminded myself that they were about to kill me.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“The Pavilion did not burn by lightening," she said.
He hesitated again. "It holds the memory of fire," he said at last. "Lightening is young and strong and thoughtless, but it could also wish to visit the site of some particular victory of one of its kind--as a young soldier recently commissioned might visit the scene of some great battle--”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“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.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“Despair was a private weakness she could not afford to indulge.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“Not all honey— she had concluded— had a specific use beyond what all honey is good for, sweetness and salves. But this honey, it was somehow so strong that it must be for something, though she had still not learnt what it was. The best she had come to was that this honey was for joy...”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“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.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“Water— plain water from the Ladywell— and a spoonful of honey, Master.” She was sure— she was almost sure— she did not imagine it that he smiled. And it was only after her answer that she felt him begin to draw the cup toward himself. Still he did not— or could not— bear its weight, and so she carried it for him. Together they made only a faint gesture of holding it above his head, for the audience to see; and then she tipped it gently against his mouth, and saw him drink.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“...she’d found she couldn’t bring herself to kill any of her bees, which was the system all the northern demesnes used, and so had to get them through the winter somehow. She’d been cold that winter herself, after wrapping up her most exposed hives in all the blankets she had.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“But her curiosity got the better of her and at last she went back to where she’d left a big shallow basin of milk only the day before…and found the surface of the milk invisible under a carpet of her bees. “Bees don’t drink milk,” she said to them. When they lifted and flew away the basin was empty and clean.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
“it was nearly dawn, and the hill was white with snow. She was covered with a thick blanket of bees, and the snow lay upon them in bright broken spangles. She sat up in distress— bees cannot survive hard cold outside their hives— but they seemed to shake themselves...”
― Robin McKinley, quote from Chalice
Robin McKinley
Born place: in Warren, Ohio, The United States
Born date November 16, 1952
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“Don't differentiate routine names solely by number. One developer wrote all his code in one big function. Then he took every 15 lines and created functions named Part1, Part2, and so on. After that, he created one high-level function that called each part.”
― quote from Code Complete
“No, baby, I’m all man,” he said with a smirk, winking at her. “Want me to prove it?”
― Jane Harvey-Berrick, quote from Dangerous to Know & Love
“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW If”
― quote from Thank You for Being Such a Pain: Spiritual Guidance for Dealing with Difficult People
“Where I’ve been is places, and what I’ve seen is things, and there’ve been times I’ve run off from seeing them, off to other places and things. I keep moving, me and this guitar with the silver strings slung behind my shoulder. Sometimes I’ve got food with me, and an extra shirt maybe, but most times just the guitar, and trust to God for what I need else.”
― Manly Wade Wellman, quote from Who Fears The Devil
“Perhaps it is how we are made; perhaps words of truth reach us best through the heart, and stories and songs are the language of the heart.” -Stephen Lawhead, Merlin”
― quote from Chasing Merlin
Rival
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Sixty Stories
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