Peter S. Beagle Quotes

The Last Unicorn (1968)

The Unicorn, to Schmendrick, as the harpy Celaeno kills Mommy Fortuna
The Last Unicorn (1982 film)

The Unicorn Sonata (1996)

"My Last Heroes" in The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances (1997)

The Unicorn, after overhearing hunters declare her to be the last unicorn.
The Last Unicorn (1982 film)
Context: I am the only Unicorn there is? The Last? … That cannot be. Why would I be the last? What do men know? Because they have seen no unicorns for a while does not mean we have all vanished. We do not vanish. … There has never been a time without unicorns. We live forever! We are as old as the sky, old as the moon! We can be hunted, trapped; we can even be killed if we leave our forests, but we do not vanish. … Am I truly the last?

The Last Unicorn (1968)
Context: Schmendrick stepped out into the open and said a few words. They were short words, undistinguished either by melody or harshness, and Schmendrick himself could not hear them for the Red Bull's dreadful bawling. But he knew what they meant, and he knew exactly how to say them, and he knew that he could say them again when he wanted to, in the same way or in a different way. Now he spoke them gently and with joy, and as did so he felt his immortality fall from him like an armour, or like a shroud.

The Last Unicorn (1968)
Context: The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. … Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. 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.

Source: In Calabria (2017), p. 119