Deerskin Quotes

“It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“With the knowledge of her aloneness came a rush of self-declaration: I will not be nothing.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“Then marry me. For I love you, and I do not believe there is anything so wrong with you. You are fair in my eyes and you lie fair on my heart.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“It was too important a matter, this talking to people, and listening to them, to do it lightly or often.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“I am hurt...in ways you cannot see, and that I cannot explain, even to myself, but only know that they are there, and a part of me, as much as my hands and eyes and breath are a part of me.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“…at four o’clock in the morning, when the world is full of magic, things may be safely said that may not be uttered at any other time, so long as the person who listens believes in the same kind of magic as the person who speaks.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“Her fingers crawled upwards and touched the outer curve of her breast, and the fingers paused, quaking in fear; but after the moment, despite the panic trying to break out of its shadows and seize her mind, she told her fingers, go on. This is my body. I reclaim my body for myself: for my use, for my understanding, for my kindness and care. Go on. And the fingers walked cautiously on, over the curiously muscleless, faintly ridged flesh, cooler than the rest of the body, across the tender nipple, into the deep cleft between, and out onto the breast that lay limp and helpless and hardly recognizable as round, lying like a hunting trophy over her other arm. Mine, she thought. My body. It lives on the breaths I breathe and the food I eat; the blood my heart pumps reaches all of me, into all my hidden crevices, from my scalp to my heels.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“One day" she told them, "when you have retired, you will go to live with a family who will love you for your beauty and nothing more, and if you're very lucky there will be children, and the children will pet you and pet you and pet you. Ossin has a list, I think, of such children; he sends his hunting-staff out during the months they are not needed for that work, to look for them, and add names to the list." The fleethounds stared back at her with their enormous dark liquid eyes, and believed every word.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“She, too, spoke only when the queen or king addressed her first, but she looked searchingly at every supplicant, and her clear face said that she had opinions about everything she heard, and that it was her proud duty to think out those opinions, and make them responsible and coherent.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“There were some things that took life and broke it, not merely into meaninglessness, but with active malice flung the pieces farther, into hell.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“She had not meant to name them, but she could not help herself; and having done so she thought, Let their names be symbols that their lives are worth the keeping. Let them struggle a little the harder, to keep their names.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“At first Lissar merely ran away; away from the yellow city, away from the prince whom she loved with both halves of her broken heart.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“I was no child, for you and my mother gave me no childhood; and my maidenhood you tore from me, that I might never become a woman; and a woman I have not become, for I have been too afraid. But I return to you now all that you did give me: all the rage and the terror, the pain and the hatred that should have been love. The nightmares, and the waking dreams that are worse than nightmares because they are memories. These I return to you, for I want them no more, and I will bear them not one whit of my time on this earth more.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered; it just is, like sunlight or mountains. It is for human beings to see the shadows behind the light, and the light behind the shadows. It is, perhaps, why dogs have people, and people have dogs.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“Stop it. This is me, remember? We've been thrown up by the same puppies.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog’s love, once given, is not reconsidered; it just is, like sunlight or mountains. It is for human beings to see the shadows behind the light, and the light behind the shadows. It is, perhaps, why dogs have people, and people have dogs.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“It is not so easy as running and not running.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“Campaigns are a great bore; they are mostly about either finding enough water for your company, or being up to your knees in mud and all the food’s gone bad. Battles are blessedly brief; but you’re sick with terror before, blind with panic during, and miserable with horror by the results, when you have to bury your friends, or listen to them scream.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“I long for another human face just as I fear it.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“at four o’clock in the morning, when the world is full of magic, things may be safely said that may not be uttered at any other time, so long as the person who listens believes in the same kind of magic as the person who speaks.”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin

“the ancient key had been found for the ancient lock and the key remembered it's business and the lock remembered it's master so the gate was ravished opened”
― Robin McKinley, Deerskin