Quotes from Frances Hodgson Burnett

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. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies. I scarcely ever do.

to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face 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

A hundred pounds," Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly. "All expensive material, and made at a Parisian modiste's. He spent money lavishly enough, that young man." Miss Minchin felt offended. This seemed to be a disparagement of her best patron and was a liberty. Even solicitors had no right to take liberties.

She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.

Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and, if you'll credit it, sir, out of doors he

bein' on th' stepladder lookin, over th' wall. But I'll tell

Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it. Let us talk about living.

You are inside my heart.

you are going to be sent home.... I 'm glad of it but where's HOME ?

She had no one to talk to; and when she was sent out on errands and walked through the streets, a forlorn little figure carrying a basket or a parcel, trying to hold her hat on when the wind was blowing, and feeling the water soak through her shoes when it was raining, she felt as if the crowds hurrying past her made her loneliness greater.

And they put their arms round each other and kissed as if they would never let each other go.

I shall live forever and ever and ever! he cried grandly. I shall find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about people and creatures and everything that grows—like Dickon—and I shall never stop making Magic. I'm well! I'm well! I feel—I feel as if I want to shout out something—something thankful, joyful!

But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened

One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah. "Why did you

I Shall Live Forever—and Ever—and Ever! –

and felt it as well to make his own freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay.

Things happen to people by accident

She was not an affectionate child and had never cared much for any one

A lot of nice accidents have happened to me.

It's the best fun I ever had in my life—shut in here an' wakenin' up a garden.

A veces, desde que he estado en el jardín, alzo la vista y miro el cielo entre los árboles y he tenido ese extraño sentimiento de estar feliz, como si algo estuviera empujándome el pecho, tirándome y haciéndome respirar de prisa. La magia siempre está empujando, tirando y haciendo cosas de la nada. Todo está hecho de magia, las hojas y los árboles, las flores y los pájaros, los tejones y las zorras y las ardillas y la gente.

They never sat up all night with Trouble, Peter Piper used to say. And I told him they were quite right. If you make a fuss over trouble and put it to bed and nurse it and give it beef

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.

Nature having made her for a giver — had not the least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor she seemed. 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.