“For really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for getting you out of it.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“Trying not to believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is as bad for the temper as anything I know.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has crept in, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it....”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“Robert rushed to the gravel-pit, found the Psammead, and presently wished for— But that, too, is another story.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“feathers, and a shield and a lance and a sword. His armor and his weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was of the pattern used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I., and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield were very grand—three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to some. But Robert was dumb with admiration, and it all seemed to him perfectly correct, because he knew no more of heraldry or archæology than the gifted artists who usually drew the pictures for the historical romances. The scene was indeed "exactly like a picture." He admired”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“We haven't really got anything worth having for our wishes.'
'We've had things happening,' said Robert; 'that's always something.'
'It's not enough, unless they're the right things,' said Cyril firmly.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“They didn't know being dead is only being asleep, and you're bound to wake up somewhere or other, either where you go to sleep or some better place.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“My Lamb, you are so very small, You have not learned to read at all; Yet never a printed book withstands The urgence of your dimpled hands. So, though this book is for yourself, Let mother keep it on the shelf Till you can read. O days that pass, That day will come too soon, alas!”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof.”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
“Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see one?" It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I see you are, now. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you." "You came to look at me, several sentences ago,”
― E. Nesbit, quote from Five Children and It
E. Nesbit
Born place: in Kennington, Surrey, The United Kingdom
Born date August 15, 1858
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“Luke used to give me butterflies. Noah spawned mutant pterodactyls.”
― Katie McGarry, quote from Pushing the Limits
“The Fever Bird
The fever bird sand out last night.
I could not sleep, try as I might.
My brain was split, my spirit raw.
I looked into the garden, saw
The shadow of the amaltas
Shake slightly on the moonlit grass
Unseen, the bird cried out its grief,
Its lunacy, without relief:
Three notes repeated closer, higher,
Soaring, then sinking down like fire
Only to breathe the night and soar,
As crazed, as desperate, as before.
I shivered in the midnight heat
And smelt the sweat that soaked my sheet.
And now tonight I hear again
The call that skewers though my brain,
The call, the brain-sick triple note--
A cone of pain stuck inits throat.
I am so tired I could weep.
Mad bird, for God's sake let me sleep
Why do you cry like one possessed?
When will you rest? When will you rest?
Why wait each night till all but I
Lie sleeping in the house, then cry?
Why do you scream into my ear
What no one else but I can hear?”
― Vikram Seth, quote from A Suitable Boy
“I don't want to stay in the bad place, where no one believes in silver linings or love or happy endings.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from The Silver Linings Playbook
“As for asking Tam Lin, Matt didn’t know how to bring up the subject. By the way, is anyone planning to cut me up into T-bone steaks? Even more terrifying was the bodyguard’s possible answer: You hit the nail on the head there, laddie. I always said you were bright as a button.”
― Nancy Farmer, quote from The House of the Scorpion
“...the past was so painful at any point. It seared and burned.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from An American Tragedy
The Weaver of Odds
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