# Quote — Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

> "I will tell you a story," Schmendrick said. "As a child I was apprenticed to the mightiest magician of all, the great Nikos, whom I have spoken of before. But even Nikos, who could turn cats into cattle, snowflakes into snowdrops, and unicorns into men, could not change me into so much as a carnival cardsharp. A last he said to me, 'My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to work backwards at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom."

- Author: [Peter S. Beagle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-s-beagle.md)
- Book: [The Last Unicorn](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-s-beagle/the-last-unicorn.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Last_Unicorn#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-s-beagle/the-last-unicorn/i-will-tell

## More from this book

> As for you and your heart and the things you said and didn't say, she will remember them all when men are fairy tales in books written by rabbits.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-s-beagle/the-last-unicorn/as-for-you.md)

> The prince said, "Who is she Molly? What kind of woman is it who believes — who knows, for I saw her face — that she can cure wounds with a touch, and who weeps without tears?" Molly went on about her work, still humming to herself. "Any woman can weep without tears," she answered over her shoulder, "and most can heal with her hands. It depends on the wound. She is a woman, Your Highness, and that's riddle enough."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-s-beagle/the-last-unicorn/the-prince-said.md)

> Prince Lír stood between her body and the Bull, weaponless, but with his hands up as though he thought he still held a sword and shield. Once more in that endless night the prince said, "No." He looked very foolish, and he was about to be trampled flat. The Red Bull could not see him, and would kill him without ever knowing that he had been in the way. Wonder and love and great sorrow shook Schmendrick the Magician then, and came together inside him and filled him, filled him until he felt himself brimming and flowing with something that was none of these. He did not believe it, but it came to him anyway, as it had touched him twice before and left him more barren than he had been. This time, there was too much of it for him to hold; it spilled through his fingers and toes, welled up equally in his eyes and his hair and the hollows of his shoulders. There was too much to hold — too much ever to use; and still he found himself weeping with the pain of his impossible greed. He thought, or said, or sang, I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-s-beagle/the-last-unicorn/prince-lir-stood.md)