275 Quotes by Robin McKinley

Nobody tried to follow me when I left the coffeehouse at ten, or at least nobody but some of the overweight so-called wildlife that hangs around the pedestrian precinct and tries to cadge handouts from the weak-willed. They know a white bakery bag when they see one, and I was carrying a dozen cinnamon rolls. I swear some of our sparrows are too fat to fly, but the feral cats are too fat to catch them. And the squirrels should have had teeny-weeny skateboards to keep their bellies off the ground.

One of the things she’d learnt on her own, ragged, bemused, zigzag way was that the best sources of useful information were often in strange places...

The train is roaring toward you and the villain is twirling his moustache and you’re fussing that he’s tied you to the tracks with the wrong kind of rope.

One has various things in the back of one’s mind. Occasionally an opportunity presents itself to bring one forward. Most of these opportunities come to nothing. Once in a very great while one – or two – do come to something.

The great thing about fantasy is that you can drag dreams and longings and hopes and fears and strivings out of your subconscious and call them ‘magic’ or ‘dragons’ or ‘faeries’ and get to know them better. But then I write the stuff. Obviously I’m prejudiced.

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...

Tsornin’s nostrils showed red, but his ears were as alert as ever, and occasionally he would rub his nose gently against the nape of her neck, just in case she was momentarily not thinking about him.

I’m your friend, Sunshine,” he said. “Everything else is just static on the line.

I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m here and I’m listening; and there is still joy in this world.