299 Quotes by Peter S. Beagle

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.

The universe lies to our senses and they lie to us, and how can we ourselves be anything but liars? For myself, I trust neither message nor messenger; neither what I am told, nor what I see. There may be truth somewhere, but it never gets down to me.

During the meal Schmendrick told stories of his life as an errant enchanter, filling it with kings and dragons and noble ladies. He was not lying, merely organizing events more sensibly, and so his tales had a taste of truth even to the canny Councilmen.

It’s really not so good to have time. Rush, scramble, desperation, this missed, that left behind, those others too big to fit into such a small space – that’s the way life was meant to be. You’re supposed to be too late for some things. Don’t worry about it.

I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full.

She has a newness,” he said. “Everything is for the first time. See how she moves, how she walks, how she turns her head – all for the first time, the first time anyone has ever done these things. See how she draws her breath and lets it go again, as though no one else in the world knew that air was good. It is all for her. If I learned that she had been born this very morning, I would only be surprised that she was so old.

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

I was born mortal, and I have been immortal for a long, foolish time, and one day I will be mortal again; so I know something that a unicorn cannot know. Whatever can die is beautiful – more beautiful than a unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world.

No, my friend,” he responded finally. “I am not God, no more than you. But I think you and I are equally part of God as we stand here,” and he swept his arm wide to take in all the slow, dark shiver of the sea as it breathed under the blue and silver morning. “Surely we two are not merely surrounded by this divine splendor – we both belong to it, we are of it, now and for always. How else should it be?