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.
What do men know? Because they have seen no unicorns for a while does not mean we have all vanished.
Men have to have heroes, but no man can ever be as big as the need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl.
The moon was gone, but to the magician’s eyes the unicorn was the moon, cold and white and very old, lighting his way to safety, or to madness.
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.
You ever want to see real witchcraft, you watch people protecting their comfort, their beliefs.
I am infected with life and will die of it in time.
But I still feel I waste a lot of time leaning on my elbow and thinking to myself, ‘alright sucker, now what?’
Walking by yourself in the rain is for college kids who think loneliness makes poets.
Ah. My story. Are you certain you wish to hear it? It is long, unlikely, and remarkably unedifying – shameful, even, to come from a minister’s lips. Blasphemous, too, properly regarded.
There are no happy endings, because nothing ends.
The horns came riding in like the rainbow masts of silver ships.
A Clock is not time; it’s numbers and springs. Pay it no mind.
Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of anything. Whatever you have been, you are mine now. I can hold you.
Never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention.
This creature is the Pooka. Pay no mind to the shape he wears, for he’s none of his own, and no soul either. Ware him ever, trust him never, but when the wind’s right he has his uses. Never forget that you will never know him. The Pooka’s mystery even to the Pooka.
He had never missed God or the hope of heaven, but he had dearly wanted confession to rest his mind, Communion to let him touch something beyond Father Krone’s dry, shaky hand, and holy water to taste like starlight.
If a man loved me, I would have talked myself into loving him, and I would have loved him very deeply after a while.
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.
The unicorn halted in her slow, desperate round of the cage, realizing for the first time that the magician understood her speech. He smiled, and she saw that his face was frighteningly young for a grown man-untraveled by time, unvisited by grief or wisdom. “I know you,” he said.