But I must go on," said the Lady Amalthea, "for it is never finished. Even when I wake, I cannot tell what is real, and what I am dreaming as I move and speak and eat my dinner. I remember what cannot have happened, and forget something that is happening to me know. People look at me as though I should know them, and I do know them in the dream, and always the fire draws me nearer, though I am awakeโ
Peter S. BeagleI suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns, but not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else โ what do they look to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?
Peter S. BeagleOnly to a magician is the world forever fluid, infinitely mutable and eternally new. Only he knows the secret of change, only he knows truly that all things are crouched in eagerness to become something else, and it is from this universal tension that he draws his power.
Peter S. BeagleThis creature is the Pooka. Pay no mind to the shape he wears, for heโs none of his own, and no soul either. Ware him ever, trust him never, but when the windโs right he has his uses. Never forget that you will never know him. The Pookaโs mystery even to the Pooka.
Peter S. BeagleFor a moment she turned in a circle, staring at her hands, which she held high and useless, close to her breast. She bobbed and shambled like an ape doing a trick, and her face was the silly, bewildered face of a joker's victim. And yet she could make no move that was not beautiful. Her trapped terror was more lovely than any joy that Molly had ever seen, and that was the most terrible thing about it.
Peter S. Beagle