Quotes from Beatrix Potter

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific'.

If I have done anything, even a little, to help small children enjoy honest, simple pleasures, I have done a bit of good.

Sunday, January 27, 1884. -- There was another story in the paper a week or so since. A gentleman had a favourite cat whom he taught to sit at the dinner table where it behaved very well. He was in the habit of putting any scraps he left onto the cat's plate. One day puss did not take his place punctually, but presently appeared with two mice, one of which it placed on its master's plate, the other on its own.

I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman's life.

Thank God I have the seeing eye, that is to say, as I lie in bed I can walk step by step on the fells and rough land seeing every stone and flower and patch of bog and cotton pass where my old legs will never take me again.

Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some chamomile tea: "One table-spoonful to be taken at bedtime.

This is a fierce bad rabbit; look at his savage whiskers, and his claws and his turned-up tail.

With opportunity the world is very interesting.

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding

One place suits on person, another place suits another person. For my part, I prefer to live in the country, like Timmy Willie.

I remember every stone, every tree, the scent of heather... Even when the thunder growled in the distance, and the wind swept up the valley in fitful gusts, oh, it was beautiful, home sweet home.

I am aware these little books don't last long even if they are a success.

No more twist!

In Summer there were white and damask roses, and the smell of thyme and musk. In Spring there were green gooseberries and throstles [thrush], and the flowers they call ceninen [daffodils]. And leeks and cabbages also grew in that garden; and between long straight alleys, and apple-trained espaliers, there were beds of strawberries, and mint, and sage.

Peter lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter! 'One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time.' But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.

It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born. My brother and I were born in London...but our descent, our interest and our joy were in the north country'. Quoted in The Tale of Beatrix Potter a Biography by Margaret Lane, First Edition p 32-33

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific'.

But not even Hitler can damage the fells' In 'The Tale of Beatrix Potter, A Autobiography' by Margaret Lane, first edition, page 170.

There's something delicious about writing those first few words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you. Mine took me here, where I belong.

At a quarter past four to the minute, there came a most genteel little tap-tappity.

For behind the wooden wainscots of all the old houses in Gloucester, there are little mouse staircases and secret trap-doors; and the mice run from house to house through those long narrow passages; they can run all over the town without going into the streets.

They led prosperous and uneventful lives, and their end was bacon.