Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.
I feel a whole country growing inside me, thousands of years, millions of people, stupid, crazy, shrewd people, and all of them me. I never felt like that before, I never felt that there was anything inside me, even myself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the complexity of human identity and the vastness of collective experiences within an individual.
In this quote, Peter S. Beagle articulates a profound sense of interconnectedness with humanity and history, suggesting that within ourselves lies a multitude of voices and experiences that shape who we are. The speaker expresses a newfound awareness of the rich tapestry of cultural and personal identities that exist within them, highlighting a journey of self-discovery that reveals how our individual identities are influenced by a broader, shared human experience.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about personal growth and understanding one's place in the world.
More from Peter S. Beagle
All quotes →Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name.
You were the one who taught me," he said. "I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling. I became a hero to serve you, and all that is like you.
...because in a way it happened to someone else. I don't really speak that person's language anymore, and when I think about her, she embarrasses me sometimes, but I don't want to forget her, I don't want to pretend she never existed. So before I start forgetting, I have to get down exactly who she was, and exactly how she felt about everything. She was me a lot longer than I've been me so far.
Whatever can die is beautiful — more beautiful than a unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world. Do you understand me?
Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.
Similar quotes
And as this is the obvious appearance of things, it must be admitted, till some hypothesis be discovered, which by penetrating deeper into human nature, may prove the former affections to be nothing but modifications of the latter. All attempts of this kind have hitherto proved fruitless, and seem to have proceeded entirely from that love of simplicity which has been the source of much false reasoning in philosophy.
I know forgiveness is a man's duty, but, to my thinking, that can only mean as you're to give up all thoughts o' taking revenge: it can never mean as you're t' have your old feelings back again, for that's not possible.
When a man resolves to avenge himself, he should first of all tear out the heart from his breast.
This rule of silence is upheld when the culture refuses everyone easy access even to the word “patriarchy.” Most children do not learn what to call this system of institutionaliz ed gender roles, so rarely do we name it in everyday speech. This silence promotes denial. And how can we organize to challenge and change a system that cannot be named?
But that's always the way; it don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet ain't no good, nohow.
In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.