Robin McKinley Quotes

Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?

No one wants life to end. It was bad enough when my last tour came to an end.

But, Lord Crist! whan that it remembreth me Upon my yowthe, and on my jolitee, It tickleth me aboute myn herte roote. Unto this day it dooth myn herte boote That I have had my world as in my tyme. But age, alias! that al wole envenyme, Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith. Lat go, farewel! the devel go therwith! The flour is goon, ther is namoore to telle; The bren, as I best kan, now most I selle.

The Things that never can come back, are several - Childhood - some forms of Hope - the Dead.

Sign of old age: distress at all leave-takings, all separations. And the sadness of memories, because I'm aware they're condemned to death.

Well you only need the light when it's burning low, only miss the sun when it starts to snow.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

Because it is senior year I have begun to see things as potential absences. The things I love will become the things I'll miss.

Drink up, boys, drink up and don’t worry, if we finish this bottle we’ll go down and buy another one. Of course, it won’t be the same as the one we’ve got now, but it’ll still be better than nothing. Ah, what a shame they don’t make Los Suicidas mezcal anymore, what a shame that time pases, don’t you think? what a shame that we die, and get old, and everything good goes galloping away from us.

Inside of us, there's a continual autumn. Our leaves fall and are blown out over the water.

When I have plucked the rose, I cannot give it vital growth again, It needs must wither. I'll smell it on the tree.

as they die, the ones we love, we lose our witnesses, our watchers, those who know and understand the tiny little meaningless patterns, those words drawn in water with a stick. And there is nothing left but the endless flow.

It was the last time she’d see the river from that window. The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn’t held it tighter when you had it every day.

I don't mourn the loss of my childhood; I mourn because everything, including (my) childhood, is lost.

There is nothing steadfast in life but our memories. We are sure of keeping intact only that which we have lost.

The wind, one brilliant day, called to my soul with an odor of jasmine. "In return for the odor of my jasmine, I'd like all the odor of your roses." "I have no roses; all the flowers in my garden are dead." "Well then, I'll take the withered petals and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain." the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself: "What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?

When God rang the bell that ended the fight, the world cried out for one more round.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

I notice the silvery hair at his temples with a tinge of sadness. Why do parents grow old? Life is a castle of lies slowly dismantled by the passage of time. I regret not spending more time looking at the people I love.

Oh, everything is gorgeous once it's gone.

I thoroughly object to getting old. If you could let me be 16 again, I'd give you everything I've got and everything I'll ever have.

I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?

Once, I went speeding past an old couple and smiled as I imagined their conversation: him grumbling about me and her telling him not to be such an old grouch. Then, suddenly I was in tears, thinking, 'I'll never get to be a grumpy old grandpa!'