Robin McKinley Quotes

Quotes about:

• The story is always better than your ability to write it. My belief about this is that if you ever get to the point that you think you've done a story justice, you're in the wrong business.

  Robin McKinley

  Writing, Thinking, Justice

  33 Copy quote

• I advise those who want to become writers to study veterinary medicine, which is easier. You don't want to be a writer unless you have no choice - and if you have no choice, good luck to you.

  Robin McKinley

  Good Luck, Medicine, Choices

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robin McKinley

  Dream, Writing, Dragons

  6 Copy quote

• The story is always better than your ability to write it.

  Robin McKinley

  Writing, Rejection, Stories

  10 Copy quote

• When you write your first novel you don't really know what you're doing. There may be writers out there who are brilliant, incisive and in control from their first 'Once upon a time'. I'm not one of them. Every once upon a time for me is another experience of white-water rafting in a leaky inner tube. And I have this theory that while the Story Council has its faults, it does have some idea that if books are going to get written, authors have to be able to write them.

  Robin McKinley

  Book, Writing, Ideas

  41 Copy quote

• There are things you don't want to know you can do

  Robin McKinley

  Want, Knows, Can Do

  9 Copy quote

• When they finished laughing they were on their way to being not just friends, but the dearest of friends, the sort of friends whose lives are shaped by the friendship.

  Robin McKinley

  Laughing, Just Friends, Way

  Robin Mckinley (2002). “Spindle's End”, p.108, Penguin

  32 Copy quote

• For anyone who is: just keep writing. Keep reading. If you are meant to be a writer, a storyteller, it'll work itself out. You just keep feeding it your energy, and giving it that crucial chance to work itself out. By reading and writing.

  Robin McKinley

  Reading, Writing, Giving

  23 Copy quote

• It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered.

  Robin McKinley

  Dog, Given, Straightforward

  Robin McKinley (2014). “Deerskin”, p.268, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• Perhaps it is a human thing, to look upon such beauty and fail to encompass it.

  Robin McKinley

  Looks, Failing, Humans

  Robin Mckinley (2010). “Pegasus”, p.118, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• Vampire. Dangerous. Unknowable. Seriously creepy. This one's name was Constantine. We'd met before.

  Robin McKinley

  Names, Creepy, Vampire

  1 Copy quote

• Mathin said: "It is best to take your opponent's sash. The kysin mark each blow dealt, but to cut off the other rider's sash is best. This you will do." "Oh," said Harry. "You may, if you wish, unhorse him first," Mathin added as an afterthought. "Thanks," said Harry.

  Robin McKinley

  Cutting, Blow, Wish

  0 Copy quote

• I get a little cranky with the whole business about kids not having attention spans. This reminds me of the usual business of thinking that the next generation is hopeless. Every generation has said that about every younger generation.

  Robin McKinley

  Kids, Thinking, Next

  4 Copy quote

• [Harry] had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that she told herself severely was the result of reading too many novels when she was a small child.

  Robin McKinley

  Children, Reading, Adventure

  Robin McKinley (2016). “The Blue Sword”, p.8, HarperCollins

  4 Copy quote

• With the knowledge of her aloneness came a rush of self-declaration: “I will not be nothing.”

  Robin McKinley

  Self, Declaration

  "Deerskin". Book by Robin McKinley, June 1, 1993.

  3 Copy quote

• At least I was true. My intellectual abilities gave me a release, and an excuse. I shunned company because I preferred books; and the dreams I confided to my father were of becoming a scholar in good earnest, and going to University. It was unheard-of several shocked governesses were only too quick to tell me, when I spoke a little too boldly -- but my father nodded and smiled and said, 'We'll see.' Since I believed my father could do anything -- except of course make me pretty -- I worked and studied with passionate dedication, lived in hope, and avoided society and mirrors.

  Robin McKinley

  Dream, Father, Book

  2 Copy quote

• Oh, why does compassion weaken us?' It doesn't, really...Somewhere where it all balances out-don't the philosophers have a name for it, the perfect place, the place where the answers live?-if we could go there, you could see it doesn't.It only looks, a little bit, like it does, from here, like an ant at the foot of an oak tree. He doesn't have a clue that it's a tree; it's the beginning of the wall round the world, to him.

  Robin McKinley

  Wall, Compassion, Names

  3 Copy quote

• Never assume. Never make plans. Keep doing the press-ups and deep knee bends: you'll need all your strength and flexibility when your life suddenly implodes. Maybe it won't — some people do lead enchanted lives — but odds are that it will. Some time.

  Robin McKinley

  Odds, People, Needs

  2 Copy quote

• And if my choice is to sit graciously in my best robes and accept the inevitable or to bail a sea with a bucket, give me the bucket.

  Robin McKinley

  Sea, Giving, Choices

  Robin Mckinley (2008). “Chalice”, p.174, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

• One doesn't generally look into mirrors when one is especially angry; one has better things to do, like pace the floor or throw things.

  Robin McKinley

  Mirrors, Looks, Pace

  2 Copy quote

• Feeling at peace, however fragilely, made it easy to slip into the visionary end of the dark-sight. The rose shadows said that they loved the sun, but that they also loved the dark, where their roots grew through the lightless mystery of the earth. The roses said: You do not have to choose.

  Robin McKinley

  Dark, Roots, Sight

  3 Copy quote

• One day" she told them, "when you have retired, you will go to live with a family who will love you for your beauty and nothing more, and if you're very lucky there will be children, and the children will pet you and pet you and pet you. Ossin has a list, I think, of such children; he sends his hunting-staff out during the months they are not needed for that work, to look for them, and add names to the list." The fleethounds stared back at her with their enormous dark liquid eyes, and believed every word.

  Robin McKinley

  Children, Love You, Eye

  Robin McKinley (2014). “Deerskin”, p.175, Open Road Media

  0 Copy quote

• My books happen. They tend to blast in from nowhere, seize me by the throat, and howl 'Write me! Write me now!' But they rarely stand still long enough for me to see what and who they are, before they hurtle away again. And so I spend a lot of time running after them, like a thrown rider after an escaped horse, saying 'Wait for me! Wait for me!' and waving my notebook in the air.

  Robin McKinley

  Notebook, Running, Horse

  0 Copy quote

• Everything was an adventure, at night, when you were where you shouldn't be, even if it was somwhere you could go perfectly well in daylight, and it was then only ordinary.

  Robin McKinley

  Adventure, Night, Ordinary

  Robin Mckinley (2010). “Pegasus”, p.100, Penguin

  0 Copy quote

• Mice are terribly chatty. They will chat about anything, and if there is nothing to chat about, they will chat about having nothing to chat about. Compared to mice, robins are reserved.

  Robin McKinley

  Robins, Mice, Reserved

  Robin Mckinley (2002). “Spindle's End”, p.114, Penguin

  0 Copy quote

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