Lloyd Alexander Quotes & Sayings

#1. Two things never mix: one is enchantments and the other is meddling with them.

#2. Just because you've seen something doesn't mean you'll stop looking. There's always something you didn't see before.

Lloyd Alexander

#3. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#4. I intend to follow the path of virtue. It will not be overcrowded.

Lloyd Alexander

#5. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#6. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#7. At the end of their grim race, death might be the only prize.

Lloyd Alexander

#8. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#11. One way everything looks all right, the other way, it looks all wrong.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#13. From a swift canter the powerful legs of Melynlas stretched to a gallop. The stallion's muscles heaved beneath him and Taran, sword raised, plunged into the sea of men. His head spun and he gasped as if drowning. He realized he was terrified.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#16. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#17. I can't say I'm unhappy about it,' added the bard, 'I get along well enough with mice, and I've always been found of birds, but when you put the two together I'd just as soon avoid them.

Lloyd Alexander

#18. I think we should always remember that reading
the experience of a book
is a very private, very personal kind of thing. Sometimes the best response to such an experience is: silence.

Lloyd Alexander

#19. A lady doesn't insist on having her own way. Then, next thing you know, it all works out somehow, without one's even trying. I thought I'd never learn, though it's really quite easy once you get the knack.

Lloyd Alexander

#20. Evil cannot be conquered by wishing.

Lloyd Alexander

#21. I loved all the world's mythologies.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#23. The ocean filled the footprints where a boy and cat had stood.

Lloyd Alexander

#24. For the odd thing about wisdom is the more you use it the more it grows; and the more you share, the more you gain. You'd be amazed how few understand that.

Lloyd Alexander

#25. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#26. Namaste, Prince of Naga-loka. I'm grateful. You're a fine fellow." He stuck out his tongue and grinned wickedly. "For a royal wriggler."
"Namaste, O flea-ridden tree-climber," Shesha replied, with a fond glint in his eyes. "May your life be as long as you insolence is great.

Lloyd Alexander

#27. The journey is the treasure.

Lloyd Alexander

#28. A man's life weighs more then glory, and a price paid in blood is a heavy reckoning.

Lloyd Alexander

#29. I can't imagine why knowledge, truth and love should be so much of a secret

Lloyd Alexander

#30. Dealing with the impossible, fantasy can show us what may be really possible. If there is grief, there is the possibility of consolation; if hurt, the possibility of healing; and above all, the curative power of hope. If fantasy speaks to us as we are, it also speaks to us as we might be

Lloyd Alexander

#31. My luck's no greater than yours or any man's. You need only sharpen your eyes to see your luck when it comes, and sharpen your wits to use what falls into your hands.

Lloyd Alexander

#32. Story , finally, is humanity 's autobiography .

Lloyd Alexander

#33. In some cases we learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.

Lloyd Alexander

#34. Behind one truth there is always yet another.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#38. Who but lovers dream alike?

Lloyd Alexander

#39. When prophecies give no help, men must find it themselves.

Lloyd Alexander

#40. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#42. What seems to be love beyond any question is usually a simple case of indigestion.

Lloyd Alexander

#43. He will not succeed in this," Taran said. "Somehow, we must find a way to escape. We dare not lose hope."
"I agree absolutely," Fflewddur answered. "Your general idea is excellent; it's only the details that are lacking ...

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#45. True allegiance is only given willingly.

Lloyd Alexander

#46. I fear I our good dwarf has lost his taste for adventure. I managed to get word to him, thinking he might come along with me for the sport of it. He sent back a message. All it said was 'Humph!

Lloyd Alexander

#47. Well," said Eilonwy, "you can't blame Rhun for being born. I mean, you could, but that wouldn't help matters. It's like kicking a rock with your bare foot.

Lloyd Alexander

#48. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#50. Stale water is a poor drink,' said Annlaw. 'Stale skill is worse. And the man who walks in his own footsteps only ends where he began.

Lloyd Alexander

#51. He was a great poet" They lamented.
No, he was not a great poet," said Theo, "He was a good poet, he could have been better. That's the real loss don't you see?

Lloyd Alexander

#52. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#53. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#55. I ask no comfort," Taran replied, "but the truth, be it harsh or happy."
"Ah, my sweet robin," said Orddu, "for the finding of that, nothing is harder. There are those who have spent lifetimes at it, and many in worse plight than yours.

Lloyd Alexander

#56. It is beyond any man's wisdom to judge the secret heart of another ... for in it are good and evil mixed.

Lloyd Alexander

#57. There's this huge number of desperate people.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#61. What! I don't care about being a princess! And since I'm already a young lady, how else could I behave? That's like asking a fish not to swim!"
~Princess Eilonwy, daughter of Angharad, daughter of Regat, of the Royal house of Llyr

Lloyd Alexander

#62. I shall not lie!" Eilonwy cried, "not for this traitor and deserter."
"It is not for him," Taran said quietly, "but for the sake of our quest."
"It isn't right," Eilonwy began, tears starting in her eyes.
"We do not speak of rightness," Taran answered. "We speak of a task to be finished.

Lloyd Alexander

#63. In an age that seems to be increasingly dehumanized, when people can be transformed into non-persons, and where a great deal of our adult art seems to diminish our lives rather than add to them, children's literature insists on the values of humanity and humaneness.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#65. If a storyteller worried about the facts - my dear Lucian, how could he ever get at the truth?

Lloyd Alexander

#66. Alas, raising a young lady is a mystery even beyond an enchanter's skill.

Lloyd Alexander

#67. Thus, death begets death; evil begets evil.

Lloyd Alexander

#68. Inconvient things are always remembered

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#71. She was not stunningly beautiful. She could be pretty when she felt like it.

Lloyd Alexander

#72. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#73. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#74. Ah, Princess," Dallben said, with a furrowed smile, "a crown is more discomfort than adornment. If you have learned that, you have already learned much.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#76. I've heard men complain of doing woman's work, and women complain of doing man's work," she added, fastening her bony thumb and forefinger on Gurgi's ear and marching him to a stool beside Taran, "but I've never heard the work complain of who did it, so long as it got done!

Lloyd Alexander

#77. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#78. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#80. The vitality of art is its capacity for infinite expansion. One form doesn't preclude another any more than the existence of Mozart makes the existence of Bach superfluous.

Lloyd Alexander

#81. Each day of war takes us farther from all we could hope to be or do. We gain nothing but heartbreak, and lose everything we cherish. Our lives erode and diminish, our children see no future except a calendar of anguish and death. Our only hope for tomorrow is for peace now.

Lloyd Alexander

#82. I'm trying to make myself invisible."
"That's an odd thing to attempt.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#84. Writing for children can be completely honest in non-cynical ways. In adult books you're required to be cynical. It embarrasses us to say positive things. You can have affection and hope in children's books, but that is out of fashion in adult fiction.

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

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

Lloyd Alexander

#87. Every living thing deserves our respect ... be it humble or proud, ugly or beautiful.

Lloyd Alexander

#88. Good-bye, good-bye,' muttered Gwystyl. 'I hate to see you waste your time, not to mention your lives. But that's the way of it, I suppose. Here today, gone tomorrow, and what's anyone to do about it? Good-bye. I hope we meet again. But not soon. Good-bye.

Lloyd Alexander

#89. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#90. 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.

Lloyd Alexander

#91. For Wayfarers still journeying, for Wanderers at rest.

Lloyd Alexander

#92. I, too, shall seek honor. But I shall seek it where I know it will be found.

Lloyd Alexander

#93. Count the deed, not the thought.

Lloyd Alexander

#94. Its powers?' Dallben answered with a sad smile. 'My dear boy, this is a bit of metal hammered into a rather unattractive shape; it could better have been a pruning hook or a plow iron. Its powers? Like all weapons, only those held by him who wields it. What yours may be, I can in no wise say.

Lloyd Alexander