quotes by Robin McKinley

"The train is roaring toward you and the villain is twirling his moustache and you're fussing that he's tied you to the tracks with the wrong kind of rope."
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"...My friend, there are some things that I cannot tell you. Some I will tell you in time; some, others will tell you; some you may never know, or you may be the first to find the answers."
— Robin McKinley (The Blue Sword)

"The big difference between my mom and me-- besides the fact that she is dead normal and I'm a magic-handling freak-- is that she's the real thing. She may have a slight problem seeing other people's points of view, but she's honest about it. She's a brass-bound bitch because she believes she knows best. I'm a brass-bound bitch because I don't want anyone getting close enough to find out what a whiny little knot of naked nerve endings I really am. "
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"Life is Great"
— Robin McKinley

"The Lone Ranger of vampires. Did that make me Tonto?"
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"Feeling at peace, however fragilely, made it easy to slip into the visionary end of the dark-sight. The rose shadows said that they loved the sun, but that they also loved the dark, where their roots grew through the lightless mystery of the earth. The roses said: You do not have to choose. "
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"I like that: a little pressure on the understood boundaries of yourself. Sounded like something out of a self-awareness class, probably with yoga. See what kind of a pretzel you can tie yourself into and press on the understood...
I was raving, if only to myself."
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"The man paused and added with a grin, "He also wishes your porter's head on a silver plate for not opening the gate at once upon his herald's declaration of his visit. This tale of threatening brigands is all very well, but can't I see he's the sheriff?""
— Robin McKinley

"He laughed, tried to make it into a cough, inhaled at exactly the wrong moment, and then really did cough."
— Robin McKinley (The Hero And The Crown)

"Vampires do breathe, by the way, but their chests don't move like humans'.Have you ever lain in the arms of your sweetheart and tried to match your breathing to his, or hers? You do it automatically. Your brain only gets involved if your body is having trouble. Fortunately there was nothing about this situation that was like being in the arms of a sweetheart except that I was leasing against someone's naked chest. I could no more have breathed with him than I could have ignited gasoline and shot exhaust out my butt because I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car."
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"Vampires do breathe, by the way, but their chests don't move like humans'. Have you ever lain in the arms of your sweetheart and tried to match your breathing to his, or hers? You do it automatically. Your brain only gets involved if your body is having trouble. Fortunately there was nothing about this situation that was like being in the arms of a sweetheart except that I was leasing against someone's naked chest. I could no more have breathed with him than I could have ignited gasoline and shot exhaust out my butt because I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car."
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"...but with the hours I sometimes kept at the coffeehouse I had to have learned to take naps during the day or die, and I had learned to take naps. Up until five months ago "something or other or die" had always seemed like a plain choice in favor of the something or other."
— Robin McKinley (Sunshine)

"It wasn't so long ago when all the so-called scientists said that humans were intelligent and that animals weren't, humans were the solitary unchallenged masters of the globe and probably the universe and the only question was whether we were handling our mastery well. (No. Next question.)"
— Robin McKinley (Dragonhaven)