Home > Work > The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1)
21 " Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name. "
― Peter S. Beagle , The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1)
22 " From that first moment of doubt, there was no peace for her; from the time she first imagined leaving her forest, she could not stand in one place without wanting to be somewhere else. She trotted up and down beside her pool, restless and unhappy. Unicorns are not meant to make choices. She said no, and yes, and no again, day and night, and for the first time she began to feel the minutes crawling over her like worms. "
23 " ..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. "
24 " 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. "
25 " Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl. "
26 " I think love is stronger than habits or circumstances. I think it is possible to keep yourself for someone for a long time and still remember why you were waiting when she comes at last. "
27 " I like being brave well enough, but I will be a lazy coward again if you think that would be better. "
28 " Unicorns know naught of shame, or need, or doubt, or debt;But mortals, as you may have noticed, take what they can get. "
29 " I would have chosen any other than this for my prison. A rhinoceros is as ugly as a human being, and it too is going to die, but at least it never thinks that it is beautiful. "
30 " We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. "
31 " The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. "
32 " I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, although I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret. "
33 " It’s a rare man who is taken for what he truly is. "
34 " 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. "
35 " Take me with you. For laughs, for luck, for the unknown. Take me with you. "
36 " Marveling at his own boldness, he said softly, "I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you, as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me. "
37 " 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. "
38 " Her voice left a flavor of honey and gunpowder on the air. "
39 " The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea. "
40 " I love whom I love," Prince Lir repeated firmly. "You have no power over anything that matters. "