The Hero and the Crown Quotes

“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

“He will apologize, or I'll give him a lesson in swordplay he will not like at all.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“If you try to breathe water, you will not turn into a fish, you will drown; but water is still good to drink.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Yes, I am letting my own experience color my answer, which is what experience is for....”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“I love you. I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“We kings do develop a certain ability to recognize objects under our noses.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“If you wish, I shall go personally to your City and knock together the heads of Perlith and Galooney.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“And none at all has ridden at the king's side since Aerinha, goddess of honor and flame, first taught men to forge their blades. You'd think Aerinha would have had better sense.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Why do you tell me... so much?"
Luthe considered her. "I tell you... some you need to know, and some you have earned the right to know, and some it won't hurt you to know--" He stopped....

"Some things I tell you only because I wish to tell them to you.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“There was a long pause while she hated everyone impartially: Tor for behaving like a farmer's son whose pet chicken has just been insulted; her father, for being so immovably kingly; and Perlith for being Perlith.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“She fell in love with him, and he with her; that’s a spell if you like.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“She caught her father one day at breakfast, between ministers with tactical problems and councillors with strategic ones. His face lit up when he saw her, and she made an embarrassed mental note to seek him out more often; he was not a man who had ever been able to enter into a child's games, but she might have noticed before this how wistfully he looked at her. But for perhaps the first time she was recognizing that wistfulness for what it was, the awkwardness of a father's love for a daughter he doesn't know how to talk to, not shame for what Aerin was, or could or could not do.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“The lessons she'd been forced to learn were dry spare things, the facts without the sense of them, given in the simplest of language, as if words might disguise the truth or (worse) bring it to life.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Don't let the title mislead you," Arlbeth told her. "The king is simply the visible one. I'm so visible, in fact, that most of the important work has to be done by other people."
"Nonsense," said Tor.
Arlbeth chuckled. "Your loyalty does you honor, but you're in the process of becoming too visible to be effective yourself, so what do you know about it?”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Gods of all the world, say something," she cried, and Talat startled beneath her.
"I love you," said Luthe. "I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting. Go quickly, for I cannot bear this."
She closed her legs violently around the nervous Talat, and he leaped into a gallop. Long after Aerin was out of sight, Luthe lay full length upon the ground, and pressed his ear to it, and listened to Talat's hoofbeats carrying Aerin farther and farther away.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Galanna's gift, it was dryly said, was to be impossible to please.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“I shall practice, that I may dazzle you when next we meet.”
There was a little silence, and Luthe said, “You need not try to dazzle me.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“She had courage enough, but little imagination; or she would not have forgotten joy, whatever the weight on her.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Their ignorance is so great they are terrified by a hint of the truth; a hint such as you are in yourself.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“The burden she carried was different from yours, and it had worn on her for many years. When I knew her she had forgotten joy, although I believe Arlbeth gave her a little back again.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Here—how do you travel? Do you float like a mist and waft upon the breeze?”
“Presumably I would have to order myself a breeze to waft next in the right direction. No, dearheart, I walk. It’s surprisingly effective.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“I have put you on a horse—that same horse—and watched you ride away from me before. I thought I should never get over it that first time. I think I followed you for that; not for any noble desire to help you save Damar; only to pick up whatever pieces Agsded might have left of you.… I know I shall never get over it this time. If you do it, someday, a third time, it will probably kill me.” Aerin tried to smile, but Luthe stopped her with a kiss. “Go now. A quick death is the best, I believe.”

“You can’t scare me,” Aerin said, almost succeeding in keeping her voice level. “You told me long ago that you aren’t mortal.”

“I never said I can’t be killed,” replied Luthe. “If you wish to chop logic with me, my dearest love, you must make sure of your premises.”

“I shall practice them—while—I shall practice, that I may dazzle you when next we meet.”

There was a little silence, and Luthe said, “You need not try to dazzle me.”

“I must go,” Aerin said hopelessly, and flung herself at Talat just as she had done once before. “I will see you again.”

Luthe nodded.

She almost could not say the words: “But it will be a long time—long and long.”

Luthe nodded again.

“But we shall meet.”

Luthe nodded a third time.

“Gods of all the worlds, say something,” she cried, and Talat startled beneath her.

“I love you,” said Luthe. “I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting. Go quickly, for truly I cannot bear this.”

She closed her legs violently around the nervous Talat, and he leaped into a gallop. Long after Aerin was out of sight, Luthe lay full length upon the ground, and pressed his ear to it, and listened to Talat’s hoofbeats carrying Aerin farther and farther away.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“...for he was one of those glittering people whose every gesture looks like a miracle, whose every word sounds like a new philosophy. You’ve a bit of that yourself, valiantly as you seek to hide it.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“They could at least part with love. It was like Tor to make the gesture; her father, for all his kindness, was too proud—or too much a king; and she was too proud, or too bitter, or too young.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Aerin,” he said. “I’m wearied to death from dragging you backward through the centuries by the heel, and I must sleep, but it would comfort my rest to hold you in my arms and know I did succeed.”
“Yes,” said Aerin. “It was not a comfortable time I spent being so dragged, and I would be glad to know that I do not spend this night alone as I did that one.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“None of them saw much of the folstza and yerig that day, but at evening, when they camped, Aerin’s four-legged army re-formed around them. “You know, my friends,” she said to the rows of gleaming eyes, “I’m going south—far farther south than your homes and territories. You might want to think about that before you travel many more days with me.”
The one-eyed queen’s tail stirred by a quarter-inch; the black king ignored her entirely.
“It never hurts to have a few more friends at your back,” said Luthe, tending the pot over the fire.
“They’re staying only for your cooking,” said Aerin, who had gotten very tired of the usual Damarian trail fare on her way north.
Luthe looked at her from half-shut eyes. “I will take advantage wherever I can,” he said mildly.
Aerin put her arms around him, and the arm that was not holding the spoon crept around her waist. “You may give up cooking at once, and paint your bald head silver,” she said.
“Mm,” he replied. “My love, I feel it only fair to warn you that I am feeling quite alert and strong tonight, and if you choose to sleep with me again, it is not sleep you will be getting.”
“Then I look forward to no sleep whatsoever,” Aerin said contentedly, and Luthe laughed and dropped his spoon.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Aerin heard his footsteps behind her as he returned from setting those two plates out, and she said, “Thank you.”
The footsteps paused just behind her, and she felt him bend over her, and then his hands rested on her shoulders. She put her own hands up, and drew his down, till he was kneeling behind her, and he bowed his head to press his cheek to her face. She turned in his arms, and put her own arms around his neck and raised her face and kissed him.
They remained near the fire far into the night, feeding it with twigs so that it would keep burning; the animals were all long since asleep, and even Talat was relaxed enough to lie down and doze. Luthe sprawled on his back with his head in Aerin’s lap, and she stroked his hair through her fingers, watching the thick curls wind around her fingers, stretch to their fullest length, and spring back again. “Is it so amusing?” said Luthe.
“Yes,” said Aerin, “although I should like it just as well if it were straight and green, or if you were bald as an egg and painted your head silver.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“She felt like dead leaves, dry and brown and brittle, although leaves were probably not miserable; they were quietly buried by snow and burned by sun and harried by rain till they peacefully disintegrated into the earth…”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“Up. And still up. Everything aches; it was impossible to tell the leg cramps from the headache any more; the only thing about her that bore any individuality was the surka rash on her chest, which was spreading. Up. She had been climbing forever; she would be climbing forever. She would probably be a new god: the God That Climbs. It was no more improbable than some of the other gods: the God That Isn’t There, for example (more often known as the God That Follows or the God That Goes Before) which was the shadow-god at midday.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown

“The red light throbbed in time to her own pulse; she panted in a rhythm begun by its fluctuations; the sweat that ran into her eyes was red, and it burned. And now she had something else to worry about, for she had touched the tender skin of her throat with her surka-sticky fingers when she pulled at the thong that held the dragon stone’s pouch, it burned too. But it’s throb had nothing to do with the tower. It throbbed angrily and self-consciously, and her mind was distracted enough to think, This is typical. On my way to gods know what unspeakable doom, and I break out in a rash. But it lightened the evil a little; she did not notice this as such, only that she toiled on in a slightly better spirit. Idly she pulled one end of her collar loose and pressed it against the surka rash, which didn’t help at all.”
― Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown