Quotes from Frances Hodgson Burnett

Oh, what a queer house this is! Mary said. What a queer house! Everything is a kind of secret.

to speak to her. He was interested in his roses (which, she heard afterward, were to be sent to town to an invalid friend)

fond of driving and the brown cob was a beauty, she felt that she was being given a treat on a level with the rest of her ladyship's generous hospitalities. She drove well, and her straight, strong figure showed to much advantage on the high seat of the cart. Lord Walderhurst himself commented on her as he

Are you learning me by heart, little Sara? he said, stroking her hair. No, she answered. I know you by heart. You are inside my heart

Victorian and touchingly respectable. "I have been crying," confessed Lady Agatha. "I was afraid so, Lady Agatha," said Emily.

Little Princess Little Lord

meant to give a new impulse to the race—to rouse human creatures to new moods, to thrust them into places where they see new things. Men and women are being dragged out of their self-absorbed corners and stirred up and shaken.

Qualunque cosa accada' disse lei, ' non potrà cambiare un fatto. Se sono una principessa così vestita di stracci, posso essere una principessa dentro. Sarebbe fin troppo facile essere una principessa vestita d'oro, ma che trionfo esserlo quando nessuno lo sa.

The youngest youngster vibrates with the shock of cannon firing, even though the sound may not be near enough to be heard, answered Coombe. We're all vibrating unconsciously. We are shuddering consciously at the things we hear and are mad to put a stop to, before they go further.

A body has to move gentle and speak low when wild things are about.

You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they stay in your mind forever, and I think it will be the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you, it will get to be a part of you and it will stay and do things.

But, strange as it seemed to him, there were minutes- sometimes half hours- when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one.

as the train whirled him through the mountain passes and golden plains, the man who was 'coming alive' began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and deeply.

And kissed her trembling honest mouth almost as if he had been a man—not quite—but almost.

Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy spirit. "The sun is shining – the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The flowers are growing – the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic – being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me – the Magic is in me. It is in me – it is in me. It's in every one of us.

It was a worse thing, answered the Ancient One. It was anger. When a man is overcome by anger he has a poisoned fever. He loses his strength, he loses his power over himself and over others, he throws away time in which he might have gained the end he most desires. THERE IS NO TIME FOR ANGER IN THE WORLD.

whole monstrosity growing more huge and throwing out new and more awful tentacles every day.

You see, I know what it is to be hungry, and it is very hard when one cannot even PRETEND it away.

People began to find out in the last century was that thoughts-just mere thoughts-are as powerful as electric batteries-as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.

If you lie through the night upon the battlements and think only of the stillness and the stars you will forget your anger and its poison will die away. If you put into your mind a beautiful thought it will take the place of the evil one. There is no room for darkness in the mind of him who thinks only of the stars.

Innocent little villages full of homes torn and trampled under foot and burned! the Duchess almost cried out. And worse things than that—worse things!

She herself could not have explained the reasons for her silence;

Perhaps when her eyes closed the sultriness of the night had changed to the momentary freshness of the turning dawn

This was the wrong Magic-to begin by saying too late.