Unicorns

“I suppose I could understand it if men had simply forgotten unicorns or if they had changed so that they hated all unicorns now and tried to kill them when they saw them. But not to see them at all, to look at them and see something else — what do they look like to one another, then? What do trees look like to them, or houses, or real horses, or their own children?”

“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.”

“The Unicorn Sonata … tells us that our true home is often right around the corner, if we'd only open our eyes — and our ears — to find it.”

“A Chinese prose writer has observed that the unicorn, because of its own anomaly, will pass unnoticed. Our eyes see what they are accustomed to seeing.”

“I don't want to talk about the texts or the class. We can do that another time. I just want to know the last time you saw a unicorn and do you still believe in primeval forests.”

“Billy lowered his head and ran, headlong, at the unicorn, as if he were about to butt it with his forehead. The unicorn lowered its head also, and Billy the Innkeeper met his unfortunate end.”

“She had a unicorn to protect her. Now I have the unicorn's head, and I will bring it back with me, for it's long enough since we had fresh ground unicorn's horn in our arts.”

“Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?”

“I agree that clouds often look like other things — fish and unicorns and men on horseback — but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightning flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.”

“If even one Unicorn walks the Earth my power is not complete.”

“You know what they call a unicorn without a horn? A freaking horse.”

“When a pony does a good deed, he gets a horn and he becomes a unicorn and poops out cotton candy until he forgets he’s magical and then his horn falls off. Black unicorns become zebras.”

“I'm also a unicorn. Maybe a bi-corn. Either way, I'm starting to believe in my own magic.”

“Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features.”

“Now I will believeAt this hour reigning there.”

“If you herald some turn in our fortunes, if you bring us some measure of grace — thanks, unicorn … And even if you do not, thanks for the brightness of your company at a dark time.”

“It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game.”

“I think for many young girls, there's a fantasy that someday you will be recognized as the secretly beautiful, magical thing that you are. The unicorn will be attracted to something ineffable about you, secret from the rest of the world.”

“Nina Shen Rastogi, in her article "Why Do Girls Love Unicorns? It's More Than Just The Horn" for the Slate magazine (2011)”

“No matter what, I suspect that the unicorn will always be with us. He might retreat deep into the forest in order to escape all the hoopla surrounding him today, and we may have to look harder and be more sincere in the future if we want to find him. But we'll continue searching for this Holy Grail of the animal world just as we have for millennia, and, ultimately, I believe that we'll find his glory deep within ourselves.”

“Here sits the UnicornCaptive at last”

“Here sits the UnicornYet free.”

“He could leap the corral,If he chose.”

“Here sits the Unicorn;Still bleed”

“Dream wounds, dream tiesOf his wounds, of his snare.”

“Here sits the Unicorn;In captivity.”

“Yet look again — O luminous horn!”

“Here sits the Unicorn — In repose.”

“Forgotten the strife;Has replaced desire”

“Quiet, the Unicorn,Free.”