Quotes from The Secret Garden

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"...
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“She made herself stronger by fighting with the wind.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, 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.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way - or always to have it.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that 'she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow'.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“One of the new things 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... surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, 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, my lad, A thistle cannot grow.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“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.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“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”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off and they are nearly always doing it.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if they're rich and important.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place. The few books she had read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret gardens in some of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them for a hundred years, which she had thought must be rather stupid. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“So long as I know what's expected of me, I can manage.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly little whistle gave her a pleased feeling--even a disagreeable little girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He was not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew all about it.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“People never like me and I never like people”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off - and they are nearly always doing it.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Never thee stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it - and call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when I come into t' garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

“Oh, how she did love that queer, common boy!”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, quote from The Secret Garden

About the author

Popular quotes

“The principal wasn’t using his normal office because I’d blown it up by firing a mortar round into it. (It was an accident.)”
― Stuart Gibbs, quote from Spy Ski School

“My mother will never make amends, will never be held accountable. She’s died just as selfishly as she lived. I contemplate kicking the bed. I go as far as lifting my foot but then imagine the rabbit hole of anger I’ll fall into if I give in to my wild urge. I won’t let my mother get to me.”
― Sarah Lyons Fleming, quote from Mordacious

“Awareness is not an idea about awareness, as it is not thought at all. Awareness allows you to feel life as it's happening, as it is in perception that consciousness and all spiritual qualities are manifest.”
― Belsebuub, quote from Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living

“Přání: Touha něco vlastnit nebo dokázat. Něco chtít.
Potřeba: Něco, co je důležité, protože je to zásadní, něco nezbytného bez čeho nemůžete žít.
CO POTŘEBUJETE?”
― Joelle Charbonneau, quote from Need

“I invoked you, bribing Fate to produce you.
Were you conjuring me? I had no idea
How I was becoming necessary,
Or what emergency surgery Fate would make
Of my casual self-service.”
― Ted Hughes, quote from Birthday Letters

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.