Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

"When we go to the fair in disguise, we never win at archery or at singlestick. We do get some nice compliments on our disguises, but no more than that."

"I’m a magician with no magic, and that’s no one at all."

"Unicorns are immortal. It is their nature to live alone in one place: usually a forest where there is a pool clear enough for them to see themselves-for they are a little vain, knowing themselves to be the most beautiful creatures in all the world, and magic besides. They mate very rarely, and no place is more enchanted than one where a unicorn has been born. The last time she had seen another unicorn the young virgins who still came seeking her now and then had called to her in a different tongue; but then, she had no idea of months and years and centuries, or even of seasons. It was always spring in her forest, because she lived there, and she wandered all day among the great beech trees, keeping watch over the animals that lived in the ground and under bushes, in nests and caves, earths and treetops. Generation after generation, wolves and rabbits alike, they hunted and loved and had children and died, and as the unicorn did none of these things, she never grew tired of watching them."

"And at last she woke up in the middle of one warm night and said, "Yes, but now."

"I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns, or if they had changed so that they hated all unicorns now and tried to kill them when they saw them. But not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else-what do they look like to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?"

"My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known."

"The last unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone."

"Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with their hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough"

"My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to be working backward at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom."

"I think that love is stronger than habits or circumstances. I think it is possible to keep yourself for someone for a long time, and still remember why you were waiting when she comes at last... I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you, as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me."

"Why did they go away, do you think? If there ever were such things."Who knows? Times change. Would you call this age a good one for unicorns"No, but I wonder if any man before us ever thought his time a good time for unicorns."

"Sparrows and cats will live in my shoe,Sooner than I will live with you. Fish will come walking out of the sea,Sooner than you will come back to me."

"Whatever can die is beautiful — more beautiful than a unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world. Do you understand me?"

"The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds. Molly picked up a rock."

"When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year, as though I were actually moving from one place to another. Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls. (...) You can strike your own time, and start the count anywhere. When you understand that — then any time at all will be the right time for you."

"Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back."

"Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale."

"Marveling at his own boldness, he said softly, "I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you there, and slay the thing that hounds you, as I would if it had the courage to face me in fair daylight. But I cannot come in unless you dream of me."

"I am no king, and I am no lord,And I am no soldier at-arms," said he."I'm none but a harper, and a very poor harper,That am come hither to wed with ye."If you were a lord, you should be my lord,And the same if you were a thief," said she."And if you are a harper, you shall be my harper,For it makes no matter to me, to me,For it makes no matter to me."But what if it prove that I am no harper?That I lied for your love most monstrously"Why, then I'll teach you to play and sing,For I dearly love a good harp," said she."