Top 120 Lloyd Alexander Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “I knew something was wrong when you started being so polite.”

— Lloyd Alexander

102. “Some days are like that... and what’s to be done about it? Nothing, alas, but hope things will brighten, which they very likely won’t. But there you are, it’s all one can do.”

— Lloyd Alexander

103. “My luck’s no greater than yours or any man’s. You need only sharpen your eyes to see your luck when it comes, and sharpen your wits to use what falls into your hands.”

— Lloyd Alexander

104. “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

105. “Children’s literature as a literary aberration or at best a minor amusement is a notion held most strongly by people who read the fewest children’s books. I think it was Ruth Hill Viguers who compared this attitude with asking a pediatrician when he’s going to stop fooling around and get down to the serious business of treating adults.”

— Lloyd Alexander

106. “I can’t imagine why knowledge, truth and love should be so much of a secret.”

— Lloyd Alexander

107. “He learned that the lives of men are short and filled with pain, yet each one a priceless treasure, whether it be that of a prince or a pig-keeper. And, at the last, the book taught him that while nothing was certain, all was possible. “At the end of knowledge, wisdom begins, Dallben murmured. “And at the end of wisdom there is not grief, but hope.”

— Lloyd Alexander

108. “At the end of their grim race, death might be the only prize.”

— Lloyd Alexander

109. “What is the use of studying much when I’m to see nothing at all?”

— Lloyd Alexander

110. “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

111. “Of wisdom there are as many patterns as a loom can weave. Yours is the wisdom of good and kindly heart. Scarce it is and its worth all the greater.”

— Lloyd Alexander

112. “Every living thing deserves our respect... be it humble or proud, ugly or beautiful.”

— Lloyd Alexander

113. “Two things never mix: one is enchantments and the other is meddling with them.”

— Lloyd Alexander

114. “The vitality of art is its capacity for infinite expansion. One form doesn’t preclude another any more than the existence of Mozart makes the existence of Bach superfluous.”

— Lloyd Alexander

115. “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

116. “Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us?”

— Lloyd Alexander

117. “Gwydion stood as a wolf at bay, his green eyes glittering, his teeth bared.”

— Lloyd Alexander

118. “There is a part of us in everyone else.”

— Lloyd Alexander

119. “When imagination fails, compassion and humaneness dwindle and atrophy along with it. Unleavened by imagination, the variety and richness of life turn into flat abstractions; people become objects to be manipulated – with the social consequences we know all too well.”

— Lloyd Alexander

120. “In an age that seems to be increasingly dehumanized, when people can be transformed into non-persons, and where a great deal of our adult art seems to diminish our lives rather than add to them, children’s literature insists on the values of humanity and humaneness.”

— Lloyd Alexander

121. “Inconvient things are always remembered.”

— Lloyd Alexander

122. “I think we should always remember that reading – the experience of a book – is a very private, very personal kind of thing. Sometimes the best response to such an experience is: silence.”

— Lloyd Alexander

123. “A lady doesn’t insist on having her own way. Then, next thing you know, it all works out somehow, without one’s even trying. I thought I’d never learn, though it’s really quite easy once you get the knack.”

— Lloyd Alexander

124. “You have a point,” said Fronto, “and even a poet must occasionally bow to logic.”

— Lloyd Alexander

125. “She was not stunningly beautiful. She could be pretty when she felt like it.”

— Lloyd Alexander

126. “When prophecies give no help, men must find it themselves.”

— Lloyd Alexander

127. “Whereas, it is hereby decreed to all felines of the Middle Kingdom: They are enjoined to observe every provision of the judicial codes unless such provisions aforesaid have been abrogated heretofore, though any abrogation is liable to reinstatement at any time whatever and shall be effective retroactively without recourse on behalf of said felines whether or not said felines are presently or will be engaged in litigation. This decree is not susceptible to appeal.”

— Lloyd Alexander

128. “It would be a shame if you were killed. I should be very sorry. I know I wouldn’t like it to happen to me.”

— Lloyd Alexander

129. “It is not given to men to know the ends of their journeys,” Medwyn answered. “It may be that you will never return to the places dearest to you. But how can that matter, if what you must do is here and now?”

— Lloyd Alexander

130. “Writing for children can be completely honest in non-cynical ways. In adult books you’re required to be cynical. It embarrasses us to say positive things. You can have affection and hope in children’s books, but that is out of fashion in adult fiction.”

— Lloyd Alexander

131. “I, too, shall seek honor. But I shall seek it where I know it will be found.”

— Lloyd Alexander

132. “It is beyond any man’s wisdom to judge the secret heart of another,” he said, “for in it are good and evil mixed.”

— Lloyd Alexander

133. “I make nonsense of the world to help others make sense of it.”

— Lloyd Alexander

134. “I’ve heard men complain of doing woman’s work, and women complain of doing man’s work, but I’ve never heard the work complain of who did it, so long as it got done!”

— Lloyd Alexander

135. “Hwoinch!’ said Hen Wen.”

— Lloyd Alexander

136. “Then we must say farewell,” answered the weaver-woman. “But mind you,” she added, in her usual sharp tone, “if life is a loom, the pattern you weave is not so easily unraveled.”

— Lloyd Alexander

137. “This is meant to be a serious tale- in the way that all humor is serious and all fantasy is true- and if there is no conventionally happy ending in fairy-tale terms, there is still a most hopeful ending in human terms.”

— Lloyd Alexander

138. “My joy is in the craft, not the gain.”

— Lloyd Alexander

139. “All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.”

— Lloyd Alexander