Quotes from The Hero and the Crown

“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

About the author

Popular quotes

“Am I 'just one of them'?" Swift asks, miffed.
"No, you're so much more."
...
Home is what you kill for.
And I killed for Swift”
― Emily Skrutskie, quote from The Abyss Surrounds Us

“Listen to many, speak to a few.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Hamlet: An Authoritative Text, Intellectual Backgrounds, Extracts from the Sources, Essays in Criticism (Norton Critical Edition)

“it occurs to me that this is what it means to be a feminist. Not a humanist or an equalist or whatever. But a feminist. It’s not a bad word. After today it might be my favorite word. Because really all it is is girls supporting each other and wanting to be treated like human beings in a world that’s always finding ways to tell them they’re not.”
― Jennifer Mathieu, quote from Moxie

“When he glanced at the corner where he used to play by himself, he could almost see the ghost of the little boy he had been. So shy and bashful, afraid to speak to anyone. Owen was rarely tongue-tied now, and his good looks and confidence made him approachable. There was still that solitary little boy inside him, though, and he would always prefer the company of a few to the company of many.”
― Jeff Wheeler, quote from The Thief's Daughter

“One of the key paradoxes in Buddhism is that we need goals to be inspired, to grow, and to develop, even to become enlightened, but at the same time we must not get overly fixated or attached to these aspirations. If the goal is noble, your commitment to the goal should not be contingent on your ability to attain it, and in pursuit of our goal, we must release our rigid assumptions about how we must achieve it. Peace and equanimity come from letting go of our attachment to the goal and the method. That is the essence of acceptance. Reflecting”
― Dalai Lama XIV, quote from The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters 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.