Lloyd Alexander Quotes

I saw myself.... In the time I watched, I saw strength—and frailty. Pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly, much. Of intentions, many good ones; but many more left undone. In this, alas, I saw myself a man like any other. But this, too, I saw.... Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same. You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.

If you want truth, you should begin by giving it.

I decided that adventure was the best way to learn about writing.

I can't imagine why knowledge, truth and love should be so much of a secret

All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.

We don't need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They're always with us. We just sort of accumulate them.

No, no," said Taran slowly, "It would be folly to think of attacking them." He smiled quickly at Fflewddur. "The bards would sing of us," he admitted, "but we'd be in no position to appreciate it.

The journey is the treasure.

A taste for adventure is by no means a masculine monopoly.

If a storyteller worried about the facts - my dear Lucian, how could he ever get at the truth?

Any fool can tell a story. Take a few odds and ends of things that happen to you, dress them up, shuffle them about, add a dash of excitement, a little color, and there you have it.

A shade of sorrow passed over Taliesin's face. 'There are those,' he said gently, 'who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.

That is why your sacrifice was all the more difficult. You chose to be a hero not through enchantment but through your own manhood.

Do you not believe that animals know grief and fear and pain? The world of men is not an easy one for them.

You must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled. Is not the emptiness of the bowl what makes it useful? As for laws, a parrot can repeat them word for word. Their spirit is something else again. As for governing, one must first be lowest before being highest.

Keep out of this," Lucian said. "I'm not smiting anybody.""You're showing mercy." Catch-a-Tick nodded. "That's heroic, too. But not as good as smiting.

Who but lovers dream alike?

Find what you want. I will find you.

Every living thing deserves our respect... be it humble or proud, ugly or beautiful.