E. Nesbit Quotes
-
The chestnut's proud, and the lilac's pretty, The poplar's gentle and tall, But the plane tree's kind to the poor dull city - I love him best of all.
-
The ones as big as sheep were easier to avoid, because you could see them coming, but when they flew in at the window and curled up under your eiderdown, and you did not find them till you went to bed, it was always a shock. The ones this size did not eat people, only lettuces, but they always scorched the sheets and pillowcases dreadfully.
-
A red, red rose, all wet with dew, With leaves of green by red shot through.
-
Also she had the power of silent sympathy. That sounds rather dull, I know, but it's not so dull as it sounds. It just means that a person is able to know that you are unhappy, and to love you extra on that account, without bothering you by telling you all the time how sorry she is for you.
-
I think everyone in the world is friends if you can only get them to see you don't want to be un-friends.
-
I'll plant and water, sow and weed, Till not an inch of earth shows brown, And take a vow of each small seed To grow to greenness and renown: And then some day you'll pass my way, See gold and crimson, bell and star, And catch my garden's soul, and say: "How sweet these cottage gardens are!"
-
Time and space are only forms of thought.
-
There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs forever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real.
-
It is not, Dear, because I am alone, For I am lonelier when the rest are near, But that my place against your heart has grown Too dear to dream of when you are not here.
-
People think six is a great many, when it's children. ...they don't mind six pairs of boots, or six pounds of apples, or six oranges, especially in equations, but they seem to think that you ought not to have five brothers and sisters.
-
Time is, as you are probably aware, merely a convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time.
-
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.
-
Ladylike is the beastliest word there is, I think. If a girl isn't a lady, it isn't worth while to be only like one, she'd better let it alone and be a free and happy bounder.
-
I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.
-
There are brown eyes in the world, after all, as well as blue, and one pair of brown that meant heaven to me as the blue had never done
-
Life will give you what you ask of here if only you ask long enough and plainly enough.
-
everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep on.
-
It is curious that nearly all the great fortunes are made by turning beautiful things into ugly ones. Making beauty out of ugliness is very ill-paid work.
-
One of the uses of poetry - one says it to oneself in distressing circumstances, ... or when one has to wait at railway stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at night.
-
It is all very wonderful and mysterious, as all life is apt to be if you go a little below the crust, and are not content just to read newspapers and go by the Tube Railway, and buy your clothes ready-made, and think nothing can be true unless it is uninteresting.
-
Time is but a mode of thought
-
...Albert-next-door doesn't care for reading, and he has not read nearly so many books as we have, so he is very foolish and ignorant, but it cannot be helped... Besides, it is wrong to be angry with people for not being so clever as you are yourself.
-
Then suddenly Jack was a changed boy. Something wonderful had happened to him, and it had made him different. It sometimes happened to people that they see or hear something quite wonderful and then they are never altogether the same again.
-
It is a curious thing that people only ask if you are enjoying yourself when you aren't.