Peter S. Beagle
Peter S. Beagle
Peter Soyer Beagleis an American novelist and screenwriter, especially fantasy fiction. His best-known work is The Last Unicorn, a fantasy novel he wrote in his twenties, which Locus subscribers voted the number five "All-Time Best Fantasy Novel" in 1987. During the last twenty-five years he has won several literary awards including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2011...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth20 April 1939
CountryUnited States of America
What do men know? Because they have seen no unicorns for a while does not mean we have all vanished.
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.
Avicenna California...Museum of my twisted youth, vault of my dearest and most disgusting memories.
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.
They know these mornings well and love them desperately because they cannot last - these people who know that nothing lasts.
Sing to me," she said. "That would be valiant, to raise your voice in this dark, lonely place, and it will be useful as well. Sing to me, sing loudly-drown out my dreams, keep me from remembering whatever wants me to remember it. Sing to me, my lord prince, if it please you. It may not seem a hero's task, but I would be glad of it.
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?
There's a phrase, "sitzfleisch", which means just plain sitting on your ass and getting it done. Just showing up for work. My uncle Raphael was a painter, and he used to say, "If the muse is late for work, start without her". You have to be there. You have to be there, and do it, and grind it out, even when it is grinding and you know you're probably going to rewrite all this tomorrow.
Writing has nothing to do with publishing. Nothing. People get totally confused about that. You write because you have to - you write because you can't not write. The rest is show-business. I can't state that too strongly. Just write - worry about the rest of it later, if you worry at all. What matters is what happens to you while you're writing the story, the poem, the play. The rest is show-business.
...no place is more enchanted than where a unicorn has been born.
..no meal is good enough to justify all the money and effort wasted in preparing it. It is an illusion and an expense. Live as I do, undeceived.