Quotes from Frances Hodgson Burnett

I shall pretend that," she said; "and it will be a great comfort." Ermengarde was at once enraptured and awed. "And will you tell me all about it?" she said. "May I creep up here at night, whenever it is safe, and hear the things you have made up in the day? It will seem as if we were more 'best friends' than ever." "Yes," answered Sara, nodding. "Adversity tries people, and mine has tried you and proved how nice you are.

Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow.

In India she had always felt hot and too languid to care much about anything. The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begun to blow the cobwebs out of her young brain and to waken her up a little.

her power of telling stories and of making everything she talked about seem like a story, whether it was one or not.

Eh! said Martha. It's like she says: `A woman as brings up twelve children learns something besides her A B C. Children's as good as 'rithmetic to set you findin' out things

She would never tell him and he could stay in his room and never get any fresh air and die if he liked!

So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also.

How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without making a sound, to another soul.

She could not be made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her.

Naturally, Jessie giggled again. "She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of, and what you do.

The woeful fright in the coal-smutted face made her suddenly so sorry that she could scarcely bear it. One of her queer thoughts rushed into her mind. She put her hand against Becky's cheek. Why, she said, we are just the same—I am only a little girl like you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me!

She was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe.

She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl.

Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.

Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady, he had gone on rather hesitatingly. An' mother she thinks maybe she's about Misselthwaite many a time lookin' after Mester Colin, same as all mothers do when they're took out o' th' world. They have to come back, tha' sees. Happen she's been in the garden an' happen it was her set us to work, an' told us to bring him here. Mary

If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things, sweet things,—help and comfort and laughter,—and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.

Have you done your work?" she asked. "Dare you stay here a few minutes?" Becky lost her breath again. "Here, miss? Me?" Sara ran to the door, opened it, and looked out and listened. "No one is anywhere about," she explained. "If your bedrooms are finished, perhaps you might stay a tiny while. I thought--perhaps--you might like a piece of cake." The next ten minutes seemed to Becky like a sort of delirium.

as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever

If I was a princess-a real princess, she murmured, I could scatter largess to the populace. But even if i am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for the people. Things like this. She was just as happy as if it was largess. I'll pretend that doing things that people like is scattering largess. I've scattered largess.

is the best kind of goodness; not to think about yourself, but to think about other people. That is just the way you are, isn't it?

That's almost like telling lies," she said. "And lies—well, you see, they are not only wicked—they're vulgar.

When I was at school my jography told as th' world was shaped like a orange an' I found out before I was ten that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than his bit of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's not enow quarters to go round. But don't you—none o' you—think as you own th' whole orange or you'll find out you're mistaken, an' you won't find it out without hard knocks.

Them as is not wanted scarce ever thrives.

Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.