Patricia A. McKillip Quotes

Imagination is the golden-eyed monster that never sleeps. It must be fed; it cannot be ignored.

Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.

It’s an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.

There was the gaudy patch of sunflowers beside the west gate of the palace of the Prince of Ombria, that did nothing all day long but turn their golden-haired, thousand-eyed faces to follow the sun.

She is our moon. Our tidal pull. She is the rich deep beneath the sea, the buried treasure, the expression in the owl's eye, the perfume in the wild rose. She is what the water says when it moves.

The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.

Night is not something to endure until dawn. It is an element, like wind or fire. Darkness is its own kingdom; it moves to its own laws, and many living things dwell in it.

Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.

Love and anger are like land and sea: They meet at many different places.

That's the beginning of magic. Let your imagination run and follow it.

When you put your hands and mind and heart into the knowing of a thing ... there is no room in you for fear.

[Imagination] must be visited constantly, or else it begins to become restless and emit strange bellows at embarrassing moments; ignoring it only makes it grow larger and noisier.

Wisdom never learned silence, and it is most annoying when least wanted.

Then you will have to trust me. Beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond hope, trust me.

Content, it dreams awake, and spins the fabric of tales. There is really nothing to be done with such imagery except to use it: in writing, in art.

Research the imagination. It was as obsolete as the appendix in most adults, except for those in whom, like the appendix, it became inflamed for no reason.

Shall I add a man to my collection?

I don't teach lies, but I do not teach all I know is true.

Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.

...that once were urgent and necessary for an orderly world and now were buried away, gathering dust and of no use to anyone.

Men see what they are most afraid of.

I do not want to choose which one of you I must love or hate. Here, I am free to do neither. I want no part of your bitterness.

Peace, tremulous, unexpected, sent a taproot out of nowhere into Morgan's heart.

But even in the schoolyard I'd been aware of that silence, that reserve in him, as though he'd been raised by foxes and language was his second language.

What?" It was a good word. Like a rock in a river, sticking up to let you land on it, so you could make your way across the flow.

The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there

I write fantasy because it's there. I have no other excuse for sitting down for several hours a day indulging my imagination. Daydreaming. Thinking up imaginary people, impossible places.

There are no simple words. I don't know why I thought I could hide anything behind language.

Love is an obsolete emotion, ranking in usefulness somewhere between earwigs and toe mold.

Epics are never written about libraries. They exist on whim; it depends on if the conquering army likes to read.

All I wanted, even when I hated you most, was some poor, barren, parched excuse to love you. But you only gave me riddles.

I wish you were small again, so I could hold you in my arms and comfort you. But you are grown, and you know that for some things there is no comfort.

Epics are never written about libraries. They exist on whim it depends on if the conquering army likes to read.

You--cannot ever be certain of those you love--that they will not hurt you, even loving you. But to make me certain to love you, will be to take away any love I might give you freely.

A net of words, he said at last, is more powerful than a net of rope.

I need you to forgive me. And then perhaps I can begin to forgive myself. There is no one but you who can do that either.

Be patient, as you must always be patient with new pale seeds buried in the dark ground. When you are stronger, you can begin to think again. But now is the time to feel.