Top 120 Lloyd Alexander Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

52. “All agreed that Quickset was the cleverest cat in the world. And, since Quickset had the same opinion, it was surely true.”

— Lloyd Alexander

53. “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

54. “For man to be worthy of any rank, he must strive first to be a man.”

— Lloyd Alexander

55. “Thinking is a bit uncomfortable, but you’ll get used to it. A matter of time and practice.”

— Lloyd Alexander

56. “Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts.”

— Lloyd Alexander

57. “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

58. “What seems to be love beyond any question is usually a simple case of indigestion.”

— Lloyd Alexander

59. “Story, finally, is humanity ’s autobiography .”

— Lloyd Alexander

60. “Miss Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen languages and can swear fluently in all of them. She understands the use of a slide rule but prefers doing calculations in her head. She does not hesitate to risk life and limb- mine as well as her own. No doubt she has other qualities as yet undiscovered. I hope not.”

— Lloyd Alexander

61. “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

62. “No matter what has happened, you’re not a pig-boy; you’re an Assistant Pig Keeper!”

— Lloyd Alexander

63. “A taste for adventure is by no means a masculine monopoly.”

— Lloyd Alexander

64. “Nothing we do is ever done entirely alone. There is a part of us in everyone else – you, of all people, should know that. From what I hear, you have been as impetuous as your friend Fflewddur; I have been told, among other things, of a night when you dove head first into a thornbush. And you have certainly felt as sorry for yourself as Gurgi; and, like Doli, striven for the impossible.”

— Lloyd Alexander

65. “My family pleaded with me to forget literature and do something sensible, such as find some sort of useful work.”

— Lloyd Alexander

66. “Count the deed, not the thought.”

— Lloyd Alexander

67. “She has given you something of value: the truth in her heart.”

— Lloyd Alexander

68. “You know how chickens are, imagining the world coming to an end one moment, then pecking corn the next.”

— Lloyd Alexander

69. “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

70. “Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers.”

— Lloyd Alexander

71. “King Constantine IX of Regia had been killed three times and was bored with it. He wanted a bath.”

— Lloyd Alexander

72. “If I do find pride, I’ll not find it in what I was or what I am, but what I may become. Not in my birth, but in myself.”

— Lloyd Alexander

73. “A man who claims to be fearless is an idiot or a liar.”

— Lloyd Alexander

74. “Evil cannot be conquered by wishing.”

— Lloyd Alexander

75. “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

76. “I’ve heard men complain of doing woman’s work, and women complain of doing man’s work,” she added, fastening her bony thumb and forefinger on Gurgi’s ear and marching him to a stool beside Taran, “but I’ve never heard the work complain of who did it, so long as it got done!”

— Lloyd Alexander

77. “If you want truth you should begin by giving it.”

— Lloyd Alexander

78. “I have never known courage to be judged by the length of a man’s hair. Or, for the matter of that, whether he has any hair at all.”

— Lloyd Alexander

79. “After I saved some money, I quit work and went to a local college.”

— Lloyd Alexander

80. “After seven years of writing – and working many jobs to support my family – I finally got published.”

— Lloyd Alexander

81. “If I fret over tomorrow, I’ll have little joy today.”

— Lloyd Alexander

82. “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

83. “Most of my books have been written in the form of fantasy.”

— Lloyd Alexander

84. “I loved all the world’s mythologies.”

— Lloyd Alexander

85. “In the race of men is much greed and envy; but of truth, little.”

— Lloyd Alexander

86. “A grower of turnups Or shaper of clay, a commot Farmer or a king-Every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone.”

— Lloyd Alexander

87. “There is an exuberance in good fantasy quite unlike the most exalted moments of realistic fiction. Both forms have similar goals; but realism walks where fantasy dances.”

— Lloyd Alexander

88. “The destinies of men are woven one with the other, and you can turn aside from them no more than you can turn aside from your own.”

— Lloyd Alexander

89. “There is much to be known,” said Adaon, “and above all much to be loved, be it the turn of the seasons or the shape of a river pebble. Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts.”

— Lloyd Alexander

90. “There are those,” he said gently, “who must first learn loss, despair, and grief. Of all paths to wisdom, this is the cruelest and longest. Are you one who must follow such a way? This even I cannot know. If you are, take heart nonetheless. Those who reach the end do more than gain wisdom. As rough wool becomes cloth, and crude clay a vessel, so do they change and fashion wisdom for others, and what they give back is greater than what they won.”

— Lloyd Alexander

91. “My parents were horrified when I told them I wanted to be an author.”

— Lloyd Alexander

92. “Eventually, I was sent to Wales and Germany, and after the war, to Paris.”

— Lloyd Alexander

93. “Find what you want. I will find you.”

— Lloyd Alexander

94. “It may be,” replied Coll, smiling, “we know least what we treasure most. But we will have more than enough to keep us busy when you come back, and you will learn, my boy, there is nothing like work to put the heart at rest.”

— Lloyd Alexander

95. “Children may not understand all that’s happening below the surface of a story. It doesn’t matter. Because even though they may not be able to define or verbalize it, they sense there’s something more than meets the eye; on an almost subliminal level, they’re aware of a richness of texture, or meaning and emotion – a richness that, in a great book, is inexhaustible. And the child may well come back to it again and again, perhaps long after he’s stopped being a child.”

— Lloyd Alexander

96. “Don’t pout that way, my child, you’ll give yourself a blister.”

— Lloyd Alexander

97. “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

98. “There are heroes and heroes. I don’t deny he’s acted bravely on occasion. He’s fought beside Lord Gwydion and been proud of himself as a chick wearing eagle’s feathers. But that’s only one kind of bravery. Has the darling robin ever scratched for his own worms? That’s bravery of another sort. And between the two, dear Orwen, he might find the latter shows the greater courage.”

— Lloyd Alexander

99. “And so shall honor Morgant,” Gwydion said, “for what he used to be, and Ellidyr Prince of Pen-Llarcau for what he became.”

— Lloyd Alexander

100. “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