Quotes from Frances Hodgson Burnett

Underneath were the printed letters and they said: "I will cum bak.

Just as that moment her torn heart swelled within her.

Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses.

When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger.

She used sometimes to stop, and, holding to the iron railings, wish him good night as if he could hear her. "Perhaps you can feel if you can't hear," was her fancy. "Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don't know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again.

The mere fact of her sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession.

She is my mother," said Colin complainingly. "I don't see why she died. Sometimes I hate her for doing it.

If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it."- Page. 164

When you kept the weeds from your bare little garden, and when you dug for others and hid away ugliness and disorder, you planted a Blue Flower every day. You have planted more than all the rest, and your reward shall be the sweetest, for you planted without the seeds.

send some of their shillings to buy things.

curled herself up in the window-seat, opened a book, and began to read.

that he should actually let her

Just at that moment her torn heart swelled within her.

If you are four you are four

I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's garden, all clipped an' spick an' span, would you? he said. It's nicer like this with things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin' hold of each other. Don't let us make it tidy, said Mary anxiously. It wouldn't seem like a secret garden if it was tidy.

was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her

One of her favorite fancies was that on "the outside," as she called it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them.

he made an announcement to the nurse in his most Rajah-like manner. A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels, and a new-born lamb, are coming to see me this morning. I want them brought upstairs as soon as they come, he said. You are not to begin playing with the animals in the servants' hall and keep them there. I want them here. The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it with a cough.

You have the nicest eyes I ever saw

who had lost her mother

But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward. He had not felt embarrassed because the crow had not known his language and had only stared and had not spoken to him the first time they met. Creatures were always like that until they found out about you.

girl rattled on in her good-tempered, homely way, Mary began to notice what she was saying.

There doesn't seem to be no need for no one to be contrary when there's flowers an' such like

Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful books and pictures.