Lloyd Alexander Quotations

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

We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.

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

My concern is how we learn to be genuine human beings.

Using the device of an imaginary world allows me in some strange way to go to the central issues - it's one of many ways to express feelings about real people, about real human relationships.

My parents were horrified when I told them I wanted to be an author.

Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.

King Arthur was one of my heroes - I played with a trash can lid for a knightly shield and my uncle's cane for the sword Excalibur.

Eventually, I was sent to Wales and Germany, and after the war, to Paris.

Most of my books have been written in the form of fantasy.

After I saved some money, I quit work and went to a local college.

After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.

If writers learn more from their books than do readers, perhaps I may have begun to learn.

My family pleaded with me to forget literature and do something sensible, such as find some sort of useful work.

When I was discharged, I attended the University of Paris and met a beautiful Parisian girl, Janine. We soon married and eventually returned to the States.

I first wrote for adults, but when I started writing for young people, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life.

Two cats can live as cheaply as one, and their owner has twice as much fun

I knew (Orr was fast). But I didn't know he was that fast.

It was 1943. The U.S. had already entered World War II, so I decided to join the army.

The idea is to give people a quick start back to recovery.

This was just a great game to watch. This is what Friday night football is all about.

Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.

Keep reading. It's one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have.

You have a point," said Fronto, "and even a poet must occasionally bow to logic.

Is there worse evil than that which goes in the mask of good?

...Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger in ignorance than knowledge?

Long ago I yearned to be a hero without knowing, in truth, what a hero was. Now, perhaps, I understand it a little better. A grower of turnips or a shaper of clay, a Commot farmer or a king--every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone. Once you told me that the seeking counts more than the finding. So, too, must the striving count more than the gain.

If the pull of the outside world is strong, there is also a pull towards the human. The cat may disappear on its own errands, but sooner or later, it returns once again for a little while, to greet us with its own type of love.

Seize the day, whatever's in it to seize, before something comes along and seizes you.

Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be more than what we are.

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.

Thinking is a bit uncomfortable, but you'll get used to it. A matter of time and practice.

I think imagination is at the heart of everything we do. Scientific discoveries couldn't have happened without imagination. Art, music, and literature couldn't exist without imagination. And so anything that strengthens imagination, and reading certainly does that, can help us for the rest of our lives.

The journey is the treasure.

I only suggest to you: Will you dwell on killing this man? You wish for revenge? If you do, he has already killed you by slow poison. So, let it go. Why waste your time? His life will see to his death.

She had no particular breed in mind, no unusual requirements. Except the special sense of mutual recognition that tells dog and human they have both come to the right place.

For man to be worthy of any rank, he must strive first to be a man.

Neither refuse to give help when it is needed,... nor refuse to accept it when it is offered.

We hold each other's lives in our open hands, not in clenched fists.

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.

I can't make sense out of that girl," he said to the bard, "Can you?" "Never mind," Fflewddur said, "We aren't really expected to.

Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too.

It was 1943. The U.S. had already entered World War II, so I decided to join the army.

I loved all the world's mythologies.

Even in a fantasy realm, growing up is accomplished not without cost.

The muse in charge of fantasy wears good, sensible shoes.

The Prydain Companion is more than a quick reference or handy glossary, though it is all of that as well. Instructive, certainly. But, like any good companion, a pleasure to be with over a long period of time.

He [the cat] liked to peep into the refrigerator and risk having his head shut in by the closing door. He also climbed to the top of the stove, discontinuing the practice after he singed his tail.

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

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

Every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone.

What you may seek and what you may find are not always one.

If I do find pride, I'll not find it in what I was or what I am, but what I may become. Not in my birth, but in myself.

In the race of men is much greed and envy; but of truth, little.

I know that some readers think (The High King) should have ended differently. I cried for three days afterwards.

It is harsh enough for each man to bear his own wound. But he who leads bears the wounds of all who follow him.

If life is a loom, the pattern you weave is not so easily unraveled.

Most cats do not approach humans recklessly. The possibility of concealed weapons, clods or sticks, tend to make them reserved. Homeless cats in particular-with some justification, unfortunately-consider humans their natural enemies. Much ceremony must be observed, and a number of diplomatic feelers put out, before establishing a state of truce.

The art is more important than the artist. The work is more important than the person who does it. You must be prepared to sacrifice all the you could possibly have, be, or do; you must be willing to go all the way for your art. If it is a question between choosing between your life and a work of art -- any work of art -- your decision is made for you.

A man who claims to be fearless is an idiot or a liar.

And so they lived many happy years, and the promised tasks were accomplished. Yet long afterward, when all had passed away into distant memory, there were many who wondered whether King Taran, Queen Eilonwy, and their companions had indeed walked the earth, or whether they had been no more than dreams in a tale set down to beguile children. And, in time, only the bards knew the truth of it.

Count the deed, not the thought.

There's this huge number of desperate people.

Stale water is a poor drink. Stale skill is worse. And the man who walks in his own footsteps only ends where he began.

Story , finally, is humanity 's autobiography .

There is truth in all things, if you understand them well.

At the end of knowledge, wisdom begins, and at the end of wisdom, there is not grief...but hope

Once you have courage to look upon evil, seeing it for what it is and naming it by its true name, it is powerless against you, and you can destroy it.

This much have I learned: A man's life weighs more than glory, and a price paid in blood is a heavy reckoning.

A crown is a pitiless master, harsher than the staff of a pig-keeper; while a staff bears up, a crown weighs down, beyond the strength of any man to wear it lightly.

Draw Dyrnwyn, only thou of noble worth, to rule with justice, to strike down evil. Who wields it in good cause shall slay even the Lord of Death.

Evil cannot be conquered by wishing.

The destinies of men are woven one with the other, and you can turn aside from them no more than you can turn aside from your own.

If you want truth you should begin by giving it.

I can't stand people who say 'I told you so.' That's worse than somebody coming up and eating your dinner before you have a chance to sit down.

The dear girl, I fear, may be contemplating some alarming, disruptive perhaps dangerous project. In which case, I would naturally do all in my power to keep her from any such rash or foolhardy enterprise – unless she wished me to accompany her.

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.

All agreed that Quickset was the cleverest cat in the world. And, since Quickset had the same opinion, it was surely true.

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.

She has given you something of value: the truth in her heart.

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.

Craftsmanship isn't like water in an earthen pot, to be taken out by the dipperful until it's empty. No, the more drawn out the more remains.

The only thing a cat worries about is what's happening right now. As we tell the kittens, you can only wash one paw at a time.

Books can truly change our lives: the lives of those who read them, the lives of those who write them. Readers and writers alike discover things they never knew about the world and about themselves.

Trust your luck, Taran Wanderer. But don't forget to put out your nets!

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.

Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we can do. Our capabilities seldom match our aspirations, and we are often woefully unprepared. To this extent, we are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart.

For the deeds of a man, not the words of a prophecy, are what shape his destiny.

Life's a forge - Yes, and hammer and anvil, too. You'll be roasted, smelted, and pounded, and you'll scarce know what's happening to you. But stand proudly to it. Metal's worthless till it is shaped and tempered. More labor than luck. Face the pounding, don't fear the proving; and you'll stand well against any hammer and anvil.

Forgive me....I called you an idiot. I spoke too hastily. You are not. Had I given it more thought, I would have called you a scoundrel.

-"He loved her...It was noble of him. It was beautiful." -"It was stupid.

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

Who but lovers dream alike?

Are you slow-witted? I'm so sorry for you. It's terrible to be dull and stupid.

And thus did an Assistant Pig-Keeper become High King of Prydain.

There is more honor in a field well plowed than in a field steeped in blood.

Hope is an essential thread in the fabric of all fantasies, an Ariadne's thread to guide us out of the labyrinth ... Human beings have always needed hope, and surely now more than ever.

For Wayfarers still journeying, for Wanderers at rest.

How easy it is to think well of ourselves. Until the moment is upon us, we can never be certain.