Peter S. Beagle Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Writing has nothing to do with publishing. Nothing. People get totally confused about that. You write because you have to - you write because you can't not write. The rest is show-business. I can't state that too strongly. Just write - worry about the rest of it later, if you worry at all. What matters is what happens to you while you're writing the story, the poem, the play. The rest is show-business.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Confused, Writing, Play

  6 Copy quote

• All lives are composed of two basic elements," the squirrel said, "purpose and poetry. By being ourselves, squirrel and raven, we fulfill the first requirement, you in flight and I in my tree. But there is poetry in the meanest of lives, and if we leave it unsought we leave ourselves unrealized. A life without food, without shelter, without love, a life lived in the rain—this is nothing beside a life without poetry.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Rain, Squirrels, Ravens

  4 Copy quote

• The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds. Molly picked up a rock.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Rocks, Secret, Unicorn

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

  5 Copy quote

• I'll tell you something. Once I was very fond of a poem by Emily Dickinson or somebody. I only remember one line of it, but it goes, 'The soul selects her own society.' I used to tell it to everybody. Once I quoted it to a friend of mine, and he said, 'Maybe, but the body gets thrown into bed with the goddamnedest people.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Sex, People, Soul

  Peter S. Beagle (2003). “A fine and private place: The last unicorn”

  7 Copy quote

• I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns, but not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else — what do they look to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?

  Peter S. Beagle

  Horse, Children, Real

  Peter S. Beagle (2003). “A fine and private place: The last unicorn”

  31 Copy quote

• Unicorns are immortal. It is their nature to live alone in one place: usually a forest where there is a pool clear enough for them to see themselves -- for they are a little vain, knowing themselves to be the most beautiful.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Beautiful, Knowing, Littles

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

  33 Copy quote

• You were the one who taught me," he said. "I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Hero, Sorrow, Together

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

  9 Copy quote

• There's a phrase, "sitzfleisch", which means just plain sitting on your ass and getting it done. Just showing up for work. My uncle Raphael was a painter, and he used to say, "If the muse is late for work, start without her". You have to be there. You have to be there, and do it, and grind it out, even when it is grinding and you know you're probably going to rewrite all this tomorrow.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Uncles, Writing, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• Ravens bring things to people. We're like that. It's our nature. We don't like it.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Ravens, People

  Peter S Beagle (2007). “A Fine & Private Place”, p.15, Tachyon Publications

  9 Copy quote

• The Lady Amalthea beckoned, and the cat wriggled all over, like a dog, but he would not come near... She was offering her open palm to the crook-eared cat, but he stayed where he was, shivering with the desire to go to her"...[later, Molly asked the cat] "Why were you afraid to let her touch you? I saw you. You were afraid of her." "If she had touched me," he said very softly, "I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will... The price is more than a cat can pay.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Dog, Cat, Offering

  4 Copy quote

• The last unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Woods, Lasts, Unicorn

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

  103 Copy quote

• Sitting up all night would be pointless if somebody you loved wasn't sitting up with you, picking out music to play and helping you kill the bourbon. Walking by yourself in the rain is for college kids who think loneliness makes poets.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Loneliness, Rain, Kids

  Peter S. Beagle (2003). “A fine and private place: The last unicorn”

  7 Copy quote

• Unicorns are not to be forgiven." The magician felt himself growing giddy with jealousy, not only of the touch but of something like a secret that was moving between Molly and the unicorn. "Unicorns are for beginnings," he said, "for innocence and purity, for newness. Unicorns are for young girls." Molly was stroking the unicorn's throat as timidly as though she were blind. She dried her grimy tears on the white mane. "You don't know much about unicorns," she said.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Girl, Moving, White

  31 Copy quote

• ...no place is more enchanted than where a unicorn has been born.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Unicorn, Enchanted, Born

  69 Copy quote

• He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Dream, Twilight, Honor

  5 Copy quote

• This creature is the Pooka. Pay no mind to the shape he wears, for he’s none of his own, and no soul either. Ware him ever, trust him never, but when the wind’s right he has his uses. Never forget that you will never know him. The Pooka’s mystery even to the Pooka.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Wind, Soul, Mind

  5 Copy quote

• She said, "I will go no farther." "There is no choice. We can only go on." The magician said again. "We can only go on.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Choices, Goes On, Said

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

  8 Copy quote

• It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Taken, Men, Unicorn

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

  8 Copy quote

• ...because in a way it happened to someone else. I don't really speak that person's language anymore, and when I think about her, she embarrasses me sometimes, but I don't want to forget her, I don't want to pretend she never existed. So before I start forgetting, I have to get down exactly who she was, and exactly how she felt about everything. She was me a lot longer than I've been me so far.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Thinking, Want, Way

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Cat, Answers, Want

  "The Last Unicorn". Book by Peter S. Beagle, 1968.

  7 Copy quote

• They know these mornings well and love them desperately because they cannot last - these people who know that nothing lasts.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Morning, People, And Love

  Peter S Beagle (2007). “A Fine & Private Place”, p.75, Tachyon Publications

  4 Copy quote

• ..no meal is good enough to justify all the money and effort wasted in preparing it. It is an illusion and an expense. Live as I do, undeceived.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Effort, Meals, Illusion

  4 Copy quote

• Her voice left a flavor of honey and gunpowder on the air.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Air, Voice, Gunpowder

  Peter S. Beagle (2003). “A fine and private place: The last unicorn”

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Book, Heart, Men

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

  5 Copy quote

• If a man loved me, I would have talked myself into loving him, and I would have loved him very deeply after a while.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Men, Loving Him, Ifs

  Peter S Beagle (2007). “A Fine & Private Place”, p.210, Tachyon Publications

  4 Copy quote

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