Fantasy Books

"But where do you live mostly now?" "With the lost boys." "Who are they?" "They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are ent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm captain."

"She is quite a common fairy," Peter explained apologetically; "she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots and kettles."

"No, no, listen. Don't listen to me, listen. You can find your people if you are brave. They passed down all the roads long ago, and the Red Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints."

"In the long-ago year of 1968, post-Tolkien fantasy was just entering its first great bloom — suddenly you could find fantasy novels everywhere, old classics as well as bright new stuff. I bought The Last Unicorn because the cover was a lovely take on the medieval unicorn tapestries — I was unsure about the title, because it seemed a distinct possibility that it would be a sticky, fluffy, rhinestone sort of book and I didn't like those. I'd been introduced to fantasy through Tolkien and Mervyn Peake and E. R. Eddison, and I liked some power in my fantasy. The Last Unicorn proceeded to run 220 volts through my little 110-volt brain."

"Doing good, like love, cannot be valued for what it accomplishes, since the unicorn flatly declares, "You are a man, and men can do nothing that makes any difference." Loving and doing good must be chosen, as Lir and Schmendrick choose them, for the beauty and pleasure and wonder of doing good."

"My people are in the world again. No sorrow will live in my heart as long as that joy — save one, and I thank you for that, too. Farewell, good magician. I will try to go home."

"You are a true and mortal wizard now, as you always wished. Does it make you happy?" "Yes," he replied with a quiet laugh. "I'm not poor Haggard, to lose my heart's desire in the having of it. But there are wizards and wizards; there is black magic and white magic, and the infinite shades of gray between — and I see now that it is all the same. Whether I decide to be what men would call a wise and good magician — aiding heroes, thwarting witches, wicked lords, and unreasonable parents; making rain, curing woolsorter's disease and the mad staggers, getting cats down from trees — or whether I choose the retorts full of elixirs and essences, the powders and herbs and banes, the padlocked books of gramarye bound in skins better left unnamed, the muddy mist darkening in the chamber and the sweet voice lisping therein — why, life is short, and how many can I help or harm? I have my power at last, but the world is still too heavy for me to move, though my friend Lír might think otherwise." And he laughed again in his dream, a little sadly. The unicorn said, "That is true. You are a man, and men can do nothing that makes any difference." But her voice was strangely slow and burdened. She asked, "Which will you choose?" The magician laughed for a third time. "Oh, it will be the kind magic, undoubtedly, because you would like it more. I do not think that I will ever see you again, but I will try to do what would please you if you knew...."

"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."

"Your true task has just begun, and you may not know in your life if you have succeeded in it, but only if you fail."

"Then Schmendrick stepped out into the open and said a few words. They were short words, undistinguished either by melody or harshness, and Schmendrick himself could not hear them for the Red Bull's dreadful bawling. But he knew what they meant, and he knew exactly how to say them, and he knew that he could say them again when he wanted to, in the same way or in a different way. Now he spoke them gently and with joy, and as did so he felt his immortality fall from him like an armour, or like a shroud."

"Prince Lír stood between her body and the Bull, weaponless, but with his hands up as though he thought he still held a sword and shield. Once more in that endless night the prince said, "No." He looked very foolish, and he was about to be trampled flat. The Red Bull could not see him, and would kill him without ever knowing that he had been in the way. Wonder and love and great sorrow shook Schmendrick the Magician then, and came together inside him and filled him, filled him until he felt himself brimming and flowing with something that was none of these. He did not believe it, but it came to him anyway, as it had touched him twice before and left him more barren than he had been. This time, there was too much of it for him to hold; it spilled through his fingers and toes, welled up equally in his eyes and his hair and the hollows of his shoulders. There was too much to hold — too much ever to use; and still he found himself weeping with the pain of his impossible greed. He thought, or said, or sang, I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full."

"But at the same moment, Prince Lír said, "No." The word escaped him as suddenly as a sneeze, emerging in a questioning squeak — the voice of a silly young man mortally embarressed by a rich and terrible gift. "No," he repeated, and this time the word tolled in another voice, a kings's voice; not Haggard, but a king whose grief was not for what he did not have, but for what he could not give. "My lady," he said, "I am a hero. It is a trade, no more, like weaving or brewing, and like them it has its own tricks and knacks and small arts. There are ways of perceiving witches, and knowing of poison streams; there are certain weak spots that all dragons tend to have, and certain riddles that hooded strangers tend to set you. But the true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.""

"But the skull was laughing again; this time making a thoughtful, almost kindly noise. "Remember what I told you about time," it said. "When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could've walked through the walls.""

"Do you like the first poem?" "It certainly had a lot of feeling," she said. "Can you really rhyme 'bloomed' and 'ruined'?" "It needs a bit of smoothing out," Prince Lír admitted, "'Miracle' is the word I'm worried about." "I was wondering about 'grackle' myself."

"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."

"To the memory of Dr. Olfert Dapper, who saw a wild unicorn in the Maine woods in 1673, and for Robert Nathan, who has seen one or two in Los Angeles."

"Cruel?" she asked. "How can I be cruel? That is for mortals." But then she did raise her eyes, and they were great with sorrow, and with something very near to mockery. She said, "So is kindness."

"I must go. There is a ogre of some sort devouring village maidens two day's ride from here. It is said that he can be slain only by one who wields the Great Ax of Duke Alban. Unfortunately, Duke Alban himself was one of the first consumed — he was dressed as a village maiden at the time, to deceive the monster — and there is little doubt who holds the Great Ax now. If I do not return, think of me. Farewell."

"The prince said, "Who is she Molly? What kind of woman is it who believes — who knows, for I saw her face — that she can cure wounds with a touch, and who weeps without tears?" Molly went on about her work, still humming to herself. "Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with her hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough.""

"I like being brave well enough, but I will be a lazy coward again if you think that would be better. The sight of her makes me want to do battle with all evil and ugliness, but it also makes me want to sit still and be unhappy."

"But what's left on earth that I haven't tried?" Prince Lír demanded. "I have swum four rivers, each in full flood and some more than a mile wide. I have climbed seven mountains never before climbed, slept three nights in the march of the Hanged Men, and walked alive out of that forest where the flowers burn your eyes and the nightingales sing poison. I have ended my betrothal to the princess I had agreed to marry — and if you don't think that was a heroic deed, you don't know her mother. I have vanquished exactly fifteen black knights, waiting by the ford in their black pavillion, challenging all who came to cross. And I've long since lost count of the witches in the thorny woods, the giants, the demons disguised as damsels, the glass hills, the fatal riddles, and terrible tasks; the magic apples, rings, lamps, potions, swords, cloaks, boots, neckties, and nightcaps. Not to mention the winged horses, the basillisks and sea serpents, and all the rest of the livestock."

"Molly Grue gathered her courage to answer, even though she suspected that it was impossible to speak the truth to King Haggard. Something in his winter presence blighted all words, tangled meanings, and bent honest intentions into shapes as tormented as the towers of his castle."

"I will tell you a story," Schmendrick said. "As a child I was apprenticed to the mightiest magician of all, the great Nikos, whom I have spoken of before. But even Nikos, who could turn cats into cattle, snowflakes into snowdrops, and unicorns into men, could not change me into so much as a carnival cardsharp. A last he said to me, '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. Unfortunately, it seems to work backwards at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom."

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

"That's a good curse, that's a professional job. I always say, whatever you're having done, go to an expert. It pays in the long run."

"But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. "Where have you been?" Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shining beetle, but this time it was the unicorn's old dark eyes that looked down. "I am here now," she said at last. Molly laughed with her lips flat. "And what good is that to me that you're here now? Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you come to me now, when I am this?" ... The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, "She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world." "She would be." Molly sniffed. "It would be the last unicorn in the world that comes to Molly Grue.""

"We do lead a good life here, or if we don't, I don't know anything about it. I sometimes think that a little fear, a little hunger, might be good for us — sharpen our souls, so to speak."

"Where you are going now," Schmendrick answered, "few will mean you anything but evil, and a friendly heart — however foolish — may be as welcome as water one day. Take me with you, for laughs, for luck, for the unknown. Take me with you."

"He was not lying, merely organizing events more sensibly."

"It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is … There is much misjudgment in the world. … We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream."

"The unicorn lived in a lilac wood and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea."

"How can it be?" she wondered. "I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns or if they had changed so that they hated all unicorns now and tried to kill them when they saw them. But not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else — what do they look like to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?"

""Blade, be true this day." — Richard"

"(Richard addressing the Sisters of the Light when he first arrives at the Palace of the Prophets) "His fingers tapped the Rada’Han around his neck. 'As long as you keep this collar on me you are my captors and I am your prisoner. Since I have committed no aggression against you that makes us enemies. We are at war. Sister Verna has made a pledge to me that I will be taught to control the gift and when I have learned what is required I will be set free. For now, as long as you keep that pledge we have a truce. But there are conditions. I have been collared before. The person who put that collar on me brought me pain, to punish me, to teach me, to subdue me. That is the sole purpose of a collar, you collar a beast, you collar your enemies. I made her much the same offer I am making you. I begged her to release me, she would not. I was forced to kill her. Not one of you could ever hope to be good enough to lick her boots. She did as she did because she was tortured and broken; made mad enough to use a collar to hurt people. She did it against her nature. You do it because you think it is your right. You enslave in the name of your Creator. I don’t know your creator. The only one beyond this world who I know would do as you do is the Keeper. As far as I am concerned you may as well be the Keeper's disciples. If you do as she, and use this collar to bring me pain the truce will be ended. You may think you hold the leash to this collar, but I promise you if the truce ends you will find that what you hold is a bolt of lightning.'" — Richard"

""[Zedd] always said that if you accept the possibility, then you make it real. I've decided that until someone proves it otherwise to me, I'm not going to accept his death. I believe in him. I believe he's alive and out there, somewhere, causing someone trouble." — Richard"

""Who could forget Richard? Trouble and wonder in one package." — Sister Simona"

""Once lucky, twice confident, and thrice dead." — Zedd, to the Prelate"

""You are a rare person, Richard Rahl." — Kahlan/Shar/Shota/Sliph/Adie"

""One way or another, you'll always be in my heart." — Richard, to Denna"

""I think Richard could find a way to make the sun rise at midnight." — Denna"

""We'll fix it. Together. Always together." — Kahlan, to Richard"

""Kahlan guide me. Kahlan teach me. Kahlan protect me. In your light I thrive. In your mercy I am sheltered. In your wisdom I am humbled. I live only to love you. My life is yours." — Richard"

""Richard loves Kahlan. That says it all - it says everything." — Nicci"

""Richard is a pebble in the pond - an individual at the center of so many things. He touches so many things. He has turned out to be a core element in all our lives. Everything turns on what he does, on the decisions he makes. If he takes a wrong step, we all fall down." — Ann"

"Richard leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. 'I know what it's like to feel regret for how you were born, for what you have, or don't have. I hated being born the way I was - with the gift. But I came to realize how senseless such feelings are, how completely wrong it was to think that way.' 'But it's different with me,' Jennsen said as she pushed at the sand with a finger, erasing the little ruts she'd made with the pebble/ 'There are others like you - wizards or sorceresses with the gift. Everyone else can at least see colors, as you put it. I'm the only one like this.' Richard gazed at his half sister, a beautiful, bright, un-gifted half sister that any previous Lord Rahl would have murdered on the spot, and was overcome with a radiant smile. 'Jennsen, I think of you as born pure. You're like a new snowflake, different than any other, and startlingly beautiful.'"

"(Nicci reveals Richard's statue to Victor, Ishaq, and the rest of the town) "It was something the like of which most of these people had never in their lives seen. It was vision to the blind. It was water to the thirsty. It was life to the dying.""

"(Nicci is going to see the statue) Once in place, her pulse pounding, she turned. Nicci's gaze rose up the legs, the robes, the arms, the bodies of the two peoples, up to their faces. She felt as if a giant fist squeezed her heart to a stop.This was what was in Richard's eyes brought into existence in glowing white marble. To see it fully realized was like being struck by lightning.In that instant, her entire life, everything that had ever happened to her, everything she had ever seen, heard, or done, seemed to come together in one flash of emotional violence. Nicci cried out in pain at the beauty of it, and more so at the beauty of what it represented.Her eyes fell on the name carved in the stone base.LIFENicci collapsed to the floor in tears, in abject shame, in horror, in revulsion, in sudden blinding comprehension...In pure joy."

"Princess Violet glared at him. "My mother says that Confessor Kahlan will come back and that we'll have a surprise for her the next time she comes here. I just want you to know because my mother said you'll be dead by then. My mother says I get to decide what to do to her. First, I'm going to cut off her hair." Her hands were in fists, her face red. "Then I'm going to let all the guards rape her, every one! Then I'm going to put her in the dungeon for a few years so they'll have someone to play with! Then when I get tired of hurting her, I'll have her head chopped off and put it on a pole where I can watch it rot!"Richard actually felt sorry for the little Princess. The sadness for her came over him in a wave. At that feeling, he was surprised to feel the thing in him that had come awake rise up.Princess Violet squeezed her eyes shut, stuck her tongue out far as she could. It was like a red flag. The strength of the awakened power exploded through him. He could feel her jaw shatter like a crystal goblet on a stone floor when his boot came up under it. The impact of the blow lifted the Princess into the air. Her own teeth severed her tongue before they, too, shattered. She landed on her back, a good distance away, trying to scream through the gushing blood."

"The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn't. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People's chickens. But this was no chicken. This was evil manifest."

""With hate in my heart...vengeance without mercy." — Anson"