“I wonder where you got that idea from? I mean, the idea that it’s feeble to change your mind once it’s made up. That’s a wrong idea, you know.”

It was the most beautiful evening, with the lake as blue as a cornflower and the sky flecked with rosy clouds. They held their hard-boiled eggs in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other, munching happily.

All the children stood and gazed at it, loving it and longing to go to it. It looked so secret – almost magic.

You’re trying to escape from your difficulties, and there never is any escape from difficulties, never. They have to be faced and fought.

Writing for children is an art in itself, and a most interesting one.

A clown needn’t be the same out of the ring as he has to be when he’s in it. If you look at photographs of clowns when they’re just being ordinary men, they’ve got quite sad faces.

As they drew near to it, and saw the willow trees that bent over the water-edge and heard the sharp call of moorhens that scuttled off,

Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.

I am not really much interested in talking to adults, although I suppose practically every mother in the kingdom knows my name and my books. It’s their children I love.

I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.

Oh, I wish I lived in a caravan!’ said Jimmy longingly. ‘How lovely it must be to live in a house that has wheels and can go away down the lanes and through the towns, and stand still in fields at night!

Hatred is so much easier to win than love – and so much harder to get rid of.

My work in books, films and talks lies almost wholly with children, and I have very little time to give to grown-ups.

Elizabeth. Only the strongest people have the pluck to change their minds, and say so, if they see they have been wrong in their ideas.

I expect when we grow up, we shall think like them – but let’s hope we remember what it was like to think in the way children do, and understand the boys and the girls that are growing up when we’re men and women.

Leave something for someone but dont leave someone for something.

Never lose that honesty, Bobby – always be honest with yourself, know your own motives for what they are, good or bad, make your own decisions firmly and justly – and you will be a fine, strong character, of some real use in this muddled world of ours!

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation’s proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.

Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.