I have a mastery of the art of worrying that is a burden to me if I may not use it. --Robin

— Robin McKinley

I like that: a little pressure on the understood boundaries of yourself. Sounded like something out of a self-awareness class, probably with yoga. See what kind of pretzel you can tie yourself into and press on the understood... I was raving, if only to myself.

— Robin McKinley

I'm also old... and my own gift for writing fantasy grows out of very literal-minded, pragmatic soil: the things I do when I'm not telling stories have always been pretty three-dimensional. I used to say that the only strong attraction reality ever had for me was horses and horseback riding, but I've also been cooking and going for long walks since I was a kid (yes, the two are related), and I'm getting even more three-dimensionally biased as I get older — gardening, bell ringing... piano playing... And the stories I seem to need to write seem to need that kind of nourishment from me — how you feed your story telling varies from writer to writer. My story-telling faculty needs real-world fresh air and experiences that create calluses (and sometimes bruises).

— Robin McKinley

It doesn't matter if I'm only to be gone four days, as in this case; I take six months' supply of reading material everywhere. Anyone who needs further explication of this eccentricity can find it usefully set out in the first pages of W. Somerset Maugham's story "The Book-Bag.

— Robin McKinley

It is not so easy as running and not running.

— Robin McKinley

It seems to me further, that it is very odd that fate should leave so careful a trail, and spend so little time preparing the one that must follow it.

— Robin McKinley

It's funny, because I had thought, living through those first two months after the night at the lake, that the great crisis was about What I Was or Who I'd Become or What Terrible Thing Was Wrong With Me (and About to Go Wronger) and Why All Was Changed As a Result. But I was still struggling against the idea that all *was* changed.

— Robin McKinley

It's kind of interesting you're driving a car big enough for a wolfhound and a mastiff to get in the back of today," I said." And a greyhound, a dark brown bear, and a brindle utility vehicle," said Jill." Greyhounds don't take up much room," I said. "They're like dog silhouettes.

— Robin McKinley

It was Eton's turn now, and he stepped forward and gave the Pegasus' great clarion neigh -- far more like a trumpet than a horse's neigh; hollow bones are wonderful for resonance -- and swept his wings forward to touch, or almost touch, his all-hands to her temples before he gave his own speech, in the half-humming, half-shuffling syllables the Vegas made when they spoke aloud, only she could understand what he was saying in silent speech. The words were just as stiff and silly (she was rather relieved to discover) as the ones she'd had t

— Robin McKinley

It wasn't so long ago when all the so-called scientists said that humans were intelligent and that animals weren't, humans were the solitary unchallenged masters of the globe and probably the universe and the only question was whether we were handling our mastery well. (No. Next question.)

— Robin McKinley