[But] the adventure should hold something beyond the fairy-tale elements... The nature of fantasy allows happenings which reveal most clearly our own frailties and our own strengths. The inhabitants of Prydain are fantasy figures; I hope they are also very human.

We hold each other’s lives in our open hands, not in clenched fists. (The Black Cauldron)

Despite his faults, Taran, hero and Assistant Pig-Keeper in The High King, somehow manages to find enough courage and wisdom to go through the most difficult and perilous ordeals. In an equally difficult and perilous undertaking, whether his author will manage to do the same is open to serious question. For a man who has loved the English language and tried to serve it well, at this point I can only ask: Where is it when I really need it?

...Beginnings are always frightening - for a child at the first day of school, for an author at page one of a manuscript. Beginnings are signs of life and a chance for growth. The actively creative garden is plagued with its own crab grass of anxieties, doubts, and difficulties. But, as handsome as laurels may be, they are uncomfortable to rest on.

( I'm speaking in terms of beginnings instead of endings for this reason )

"At the end of knowledge, wisdom begins... and at the end of wisdom, there is not grief, but hope." (The Foundling)

"We don't need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They're always with us. We just sort of accumulate them."