Lloyd Alexander Quotes

We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself.

Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it.

Long ago I yearned to be a hero without knowing, in truth, what a hero was. Now, perhaps, I understand it a little better. A grower of turnips or a shaper of clay, a Commot farmer or a king--every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone. Once you told me that the seeking counts more than the finding. So, too, must the striving count more than the gain.

Keep reading. It's one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have.

Seize the day, whatever's in it to seize, before something comes along and seizes you.

Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be more than what we are.

Stale water is a poor drink. Stale skill is worse. And the man who walks in his own footsteps only ends where he began.

Is there worse evil than that which goes in the mask of good?

Count the deed, not the thought.

...Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger in ignorance than knowledge?

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.

Behind one truth there is always yet another.

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

Fantasy is, I believe, the great nourisher of imagination. To paraphrase Einstein on how to develop intelligence in young people: Read fairy tales. Then read more fairy tales.

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

If life is a loom, the pattern you weave is not so easily unraveled.

I think imagination is at the heart of everything we do. Scientific discoveries couldn't have happened without imagination. Art, music, and literature couldn't exist without imagination. And so anything that strengthens imagination, and reading certainly does that, can help us for the rest of our lives.

What you may seek and what you may find are not always one.

The point is not to look back, but to look ahead to what you hope still to do.

True allegiance is only given willingly.

If you want truth you should begin by giving it.

It is harsh enough for each man to bear his own wound. But he who leads bears the wounds of all who follow him.

Neither refuse to give help when it is needed,... nor refuse to accept it when it is offered.

Most cats do not approach humans recklessly. The possibility of concealed weapons, clods or sticks, tend to make them reserved. Homeless cats in particular-with some justification, unfortunately-consider humans their natural enemies. Much ceremony must be observed, and a number of diplomatic feelers put out, before establishing a state of truce.

I only suggest to you: Will you dwell on killing this man? You wish for revenge? If you do, he has already killed you by slow poison. So, let it go. Why waste your time? His life will see to his death.