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
Yes, hope is a strange thing. Peace at last. But at what price?
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
We've been a free people living under the law, with faith in our Maker and in our future. I've said before that the most sublime picture in American history is of George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. That image personifies a people who know that it's not enough to depend on our own courage and goodness; we must also seek help from God, our Father and Preserver.
I know that some people have different personas for the different things they do, and I'm not criticizing that - maybe it's a good thing - but I'm the same old person, so I take everything in stride.
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
There are stories, like maps that agree... too consistent among too many languages and histories to be only wishful thinking.... It is always a hidden place, the way into it is not obvious, the geography is as much spiritual as physical. If you should happen upon it, your strongest certainty is not that you have discovered it but returned to it. In a single great episode of light, you remember everything.