“He laughed, tried to make it into a cough, inhaled at exactly the wrong moment, and then really did cough.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“He will apologize, or I'll give him a lesson in swordplay he will not like at all.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“If you try to breathe water, you will not turn into a fish, you will drown; but water is still good to drink.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“Yes, I am letting my own experience color my answer, which is what experience is for....”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“I love you. I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“If you wish, I shall go personally to your City and knock together the heads of Perlith and Galooney.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“And none at all has ridden at the king's side since Aerinha, goddess of honor and flame, first taught men to forge their blades. You'd think Aerinha would have had better sense.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“We kings do develop a certain ability to recognize objects under our noses.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“Why do you tell me... so much?"
Luthe considered her. "I tell you... some you need to know, and some you have earned the right to know, and some it won't hurt you to know--" He stopped....
"Some things I tell you only because I wish to tell them to you.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“The lessons she'd been forced to learn were dry spare things, the facts without the sense of them, given in the simplest of language, as if words might disguise the truth or (worse) bring it to life.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“She fell in love with him, and he with her; that’s a spell if you like.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“Don't let the title mislead you," Arlbeth told her. "The king is simply the visible one. I'm so visible, in fact, that most of the important work has to be done by other people."
"Nonsense," said Tor.
Arlbeth chuckled. "Your loyalty does you honor, but you're in the process of becoming too visible to be effective yourself, so what do you know about it?”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“Galanna's gift, it was dryly said, was to be impossible to please.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“She caught her father one day at breakfast, between ministers with tactical problems and councillors with strategic ones. His face lit up when he saw her, and she made an embarrassed mental note to seek him out more often; he was not a man who had ever been able to enter into a child's games, but she might have noticed before this how wistfully he looked at her. But for perhaps the first time she was recognizing that wistfulness for what it was, the awkwardness of a father's love for a daughter he doesn't know how to talk to, not shame for what Aerin was, or could or could not do.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“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 listened to Talat's hoofbeats carrying Aerin farther and farther away.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“There was a long pause while she hated everyone impartially: Tor for behaving like a farmer's son whose pet chicken has just been insulted; her father, for being so immovably kingly; and Perlith for being Perlith.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“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.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“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, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“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, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“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. She”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“She had courage enough, but little imagination; or she would not have forgotten joy, whatever the weight on her.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
“Tor said in a strangled voice, "He will apologize, or I'll give HIM a lesson in swordplay he will not like at all.”
― Robin McKinley, quote from The Hero and the Crown
Robin McKinley
Born place: in Warren, Ohio, The United States
Born date November 16, 1952
See more on GoodReads
“There have been so many misunderstandings in the past. What you did, often, was done for good reason. I know I am simple. I know you are devious. But, oh God, if there is any good reason for what you are doing now; any excuse; any unknown factor or subtle circumstance you are afraid I can’t grasp, for the mercy of God, this time, tell me.”
― Dorothy Dunnett, quote from The Ringed Castle
“The school year progressed slowly. I felt as if I had been in the sixth grade for years, yet it was only October. Halloween was approaching. Coming from Ireland, we had never thought of it as a big holiday, though Sarah and I usually went out trick-or treating. For the last couple of years I had been too sick to go out, but this year Halloween fell on a day when I felt quiet fine. My mother was the one who came up with the Eskimo idea. I put on a winter coat, made a fish out of paper, which I hung on the end of a stick, and wrapped my face up in a scarf. My hair was growing in, and I loved the way the top of the hood rubbed against it. By this time my hat had become part of me; I took it off only at home. Sometimes kids would make fun of me, run past me, knock my hat off, and call me Baldy. I hated this, but I assumed that one day my hair would grow in, and on that day the teasing would end.
We walked around the neighborhood with our pillowcase sacks, running into other groups of kids and comparing notes: the house three doors down gave whole candy bars, while the house next to that gave only cheap mints. I felt wonderful. It was only as the night wore on and the moon came out and the older kids, the big kids, went on their rounds that I began to realize why I felt so good. No one could see me clearly. No one could see my face.”
― Lucy Grealy, quote from Autobiography of a Face
“I didn’t know what to say to that. I just stared at him. He was right, of course he was right, but… “I can’t do my job like this.”
“No,” he said, “you can’t.”
Then suddenly I felt the first tear slide down my face.
“No crying,” he said.
Another tear joined the first. I fought not to wipe at them.
His hand dropped to his side and he took a deep breath. “That’s not fair. Don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, but you’re right, I think. I’m pregnant, damn it, not crippled.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, quote from Divine Misdemeanors
“Heath lost an argument with a porcupine in the castle gardens.”
― Elizabeth Vaughan, quote from Warlord
“And yet I wasn't sure what his weakness was. We all do that as we get to know someone. Like a tabloid editor, we search for both greatness and weakness, jotting down notes in our heads for future exploitation. We are never comfortable with those who have no visible flaw.”
― Neil Strauss, quote from The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
Silent Melody
Viper's Tangle
The Power of Vulnera...
Wraithsong
The Art of ChoosingBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
