Lloyd Alexander famous quotes

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

#Strength #Education #Wisdom

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

#Inspirational #Life #Writing

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

#Reading #Adventure

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

#Fun #Cat #Two

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

#Thinking #Practice #Matter

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Life Changing #Book #Giving

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Art #Reading #Thinking

The journey is the treasure.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Journey #Treasure #Life Journey

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Dog #Mind #Special

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

#Men #Firsts #Strive

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

#Evil #Mask

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

#Seize The Day

...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?
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Ignorance #Writing #People

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

#Hands #Fists

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Revenge #Men #Wish

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

#Strong #Cat #Animal

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Kings #Hero #Men

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

#Giving #Helping #Accepting

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

#Travel #Writing #Adventure

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

#Heart #Trying #Keep Trying

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

#Children

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

#Parent #Wanted

Evil conquered?' said Gwydion. 'You have learned much, but learn this last and hardest of lessons. You have conquered only the enchantments of evil. That was the easiest of your tasks, only a beginning, not an ending. Do you believe evil itself to be so quickly overcome? Not so long as men still hate and slay each other, when greed and anger goad them. Against these even a flaming sword cannot prevail, but only that portion of good in all men's hearts whose flame can never be quenched.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Hate #Believe #Heart

Behind one truth there is always yet another.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Behinds

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Cat #Doors #Practice

Who but lovers dream alike?
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Dream #Lovers

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

#Beautiful #Girl #Paris

If you want truth you should begin by giving it.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Giving #Want #Should

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

#Book #May #Reader

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

#Hero #Men #Strive

A crown is more discomfort than adornment. If you have learned that, you have already learned much.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Crowns #Discomfort

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

#Sorry #Stupid #Dull

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Girl #May #Cases

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

#People #Dinner #Chance

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

#Life #Adventure #Glory

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Cat #Numbers #Enemy

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

#Patterns #Life Is

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

#Men #Bears #Enough

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

#Kings #Thinking #Three

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

#Men #Race #Envy

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

#College #Quitting #I Quit

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Art #Sacrifice #Decision

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

#Jobs #Writing #Years

Evil cannot be conquered by wishing.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Evil #Wish

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

#Long #Pleasure #Periods

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

#Men #Pigs #Crowns

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

#Men #Blood #Glory

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

#Growing Up #Cost #Fantasy

Count the deed, not the thought.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Deeds

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

#Literature #Forget #My Family

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Real #Issues #People

There's this huge number of desperate people.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Numbers #People #Desperate

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

#Men #Skills #Water

Story , finally, is humanity 's autobiography .
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Humanity #Stories #Autobiography

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

#Book #Fantasy #Form

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

#War #Army #World

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Names #Evil #Looks

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

#May

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

#Genuine #Being True #Concern

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

#Grief #Ends #Knowledge Wisdom

I loved all the world's mythologies.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#World #Mythology

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

#Hero #Sacrifice #Enchantment

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

#Shoes #Fantasy #Muse

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

#Pain #Grief #Believe

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

#War #Paris #Germany

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Dream #Kings #Queens

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

#Wells

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

#Adventure #Mean #Pirate

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

#Daughter #Princess #House

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

#Cat #World #Opinion

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

#Heroic #Mercy #Tick

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

#Heart #Given #Values

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

#Facts #Worried #Dear

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

#Odds #Color #Littles

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

#Bows #Logic #Poet

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.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Taken #Water #Empty

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

#Cat #Worry #Priorities

I saw myself. . . in the time I watched, I saw strength and frailty, pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly much. Of intentions many good ones; but many more left undone. On this alas, I saw myself a man like any other. But this too I saw . . . Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same.You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Pride #Men #Who I Am

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

#Hurt #Grief #Healing

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

#Mean

Llonio said life was a net for luck; to Hevydd the Smith life was a forge; and to Dwyvach the Weaver-Woman a loom. They spoke truly, for it is all of these. But you,' Taran said, his eyes meeting the potter's, 'you have shown me life is one thing more. It is clay to be shaped, as raw clay on a potter's wheel.
-- Lloyd Alexander

#Eye #Luck #Wheels