Quotes from Frances Hodgson Burnett

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.

He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and thought about it, but just at that minute something had rushed all through him—a sort of rapturous belief and realization, and it had been so strong that he could not help calling out. 'I'm well…

Surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, or 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 … a thistle cannot grow.

You have yourself under magnificent control, but a woman passionately in love cannot keep a certain look out of her eyes. If it is there — let it stay, she said. I would not keep it out of my eyes if I could, and, you are right, I could not if I would — if it is there. If it is — let it stay.

I have adopted him for a friend. You can do that with people you never speak to at all. You can just watch them, and think about them and be sorry for them, until they seem almost like relations.

I used always to be tired. When I dig I'm not tired at all. I like to smell the earth when it's turned up [...] There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em

bereavement; and now—an elderly man—

I am my own law–and the law of some others.

Donde cuides una rosa, muchacho, No puede crecer un cardo

There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in- that's stronger.

Everything's a story. You are a story - I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story.

She was lonely and she never knew that this loneliness had made her sour and cross towards others.

often thought that you had just the kind of commonplace gifts that a host of commonplace people want to find at their service. An old servant of mine who lives in Mortimer Street

The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see gardening begun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creature who was not half Ben's size and yet had had the sense to come into his garden and begin at once.

At that moment a very good thing was happening to her...she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.

Whats'ever 'appens to you -- whats'ever -- you'd be a princess all the same -- an' nothin' couldn't make you nothin' different.

really. But such a nice thing has happened. I have had such a delightful invitation for the first week in August." "I'm sure you'll enjoy it, miss," said Jane. "It's so hot in August.

She was a friendly creature, and lived a life so really isolated from any ordinary companionship that her simple little talks with Jane and Mrs. Cupp were a pleasure to her. The Cupps were neither gossiping nor intrusive, and she felt as if they were her friends. Once when she had been ill for a week she remembered suddenly realising that

was looked at askance, and that in the bearing of each member of the group there was a defiance of the general opinion. Roxholm sat on his horse somewhat apart from this group watching it, his kinsman and

If the sun is going to shine, little pink clouds float about, and I feel as if I could touch them. And if it rains, the drops patter and patter as if they were saying something nice. Then if there are stars, you can lie and try to count how many go into the patch.

I shall get well! I shall get well!" he cried out. "Mary! Dickon! I shall get well! And I shall live forever and ever and ever!

But then I dare say soldiers—even brave ones—don't really LIKE going into battle.

To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in his native land — which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase-book from her, with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Minchin. "Ah, madame," he said, "there is not much I can teach her. She has not learned French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite.

in a still, delicious room, with the summer morning sunshine