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.

If a man loved me, I would have talked myself into loving him, and I would have loved him very deeply after a while.

Envy nobody. It is the true secret of happiness, or at least the only one I know. (By Moonlight)

I know how to live here, I know how everything smells, and tastes, and is. What could I ever search for in the world, except this again?

I always say perseverance is nine-tenths of any art — not that it's much help to be nine-tenths an artist, of course.

Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.

The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock on the witch's door when she is already away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.