Quotes from When We Were Very Young

“She turned to the sunlight
    And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
    "Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

“If people ask me,
I always tell them:
"Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say."
If people ask me,
I always answer,
"Quite well, thank you, how are you today?"
I always answer,
I always tell them,
If they ask me
Politely...
BUT SOMETIMES
I wish

That they wouldn't”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

“Where am I going? I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow-
Up on a hill where the pine-trees blow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on the water as blue as air.
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green today?"

Where am I going? The high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all.
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
"We do have beautiful things to do."

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind
came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow-
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

“Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
"Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

“And Teddy worried lots about
The fact that he was rather stout.
He thought: "If only I were thin!
But how does anyone begin?”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

“If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

“If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on the water as blue as air.
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green today?”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

“Vespers

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy -- I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,
And pull the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember. God bless Me.

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed.
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.”
― A.A. Milne, quote from When We Were Very Young

About the author

Popular quotes

“It’s harder to kill people. The empathy is so much stronger that the mind must invent new reasons. But, if we can somehow link it to our own survival, the mind will make the devious twists and turns necessary to rationalize it. We’re very good at that. But it changes people. They learn to hate. Your wolf doesn’t need to hate what he kills. It would be easier if we could kill without compunction, like your wolf does, but then, we wouldn’t be human.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Shelters of Stone

“The Clock on the Morning Lenape Building

Must Clocks be circles?
Time is not a circle.
Suppose the Mother of All Minutes started
right here, on the sidewalk
in front of the Morning Lenape Building, and the parade
of minutes that followed--each of them, say, one inch long--
headed out that way, down Bridge Street.
Where would Now be? This minute?
Out past the moon?
Jupiter?
The nearest star?

Who came up with minutes, anyway?
Who needs them?
Name one good thing a minute's ever done.
They shorten fun and measure misery.
Get rid of them, I say.
Down with minutes!
And while you're at it--take hours
with you too. Don't get me started
on them.

Clocks--that's the problem.
Every clock is a nest of minutes and hours.
Clocks strap us into their shape.
Instead of heading for the nearest star, all we do
is corkscrew.
Clocks lock us into minutes, make Ferris wheel
riders of us all, lug us round and round
from number to number,
dice the time of our lives into tiny bits
until the bits are all we know
and the only question we care to ask is
"What time is it?"

As if minutes could tell.
As if Arnold could look up at this clock on
the Lenape Building and read:
15 Minutes till Found.
As if Charlie's time is not forever stuck
on Half Past Grace.
As if a swarm of stinging minutes waits for Betty Lou
to step outside.
As if love does not tell all the time the Huffelmeyers
need to know.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Love, Stargirl

“Being brave was easy when you would rather die than give up.”
― Lev Grossman, quote from The Magicians

“When we become expert in something, our tastes grow more esoteric and complex.”
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“And his soul plunged downward, drowning in that deep pit: he felt that could never again escape from this smothering flood of pain and ugliness, from the eclipsing horror and pity of it all. And as he walked, he twisted his own neck about, and beat the air with his arm like a wing, as if he had received a blow in his kidneys. He felt that he might be clean and free if he could only escape into a single burning passion -- hard, and hot, and glittering -- of love, hatred, terror, or disgust. But he was caught, he was strangling, in the web of futility.”
― Thomas Wolfe, quote from Look Homeward, Angel

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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.

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