“I think people make their own faces, as they grow.”

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!

They lay on their heathery beds and listened to all the sounds of the night. They heard the little grunt of a hedgehog going by.

The children gazed in delight. Nothing but trees and birds and little wild animals. Oh, what a secret island, all for their very own, to live on and play on.

The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones.

Well, you know what grown-ups are,’ said Dinah. ‘They don’t think the same way as we do.

Here Mr Potts come here you little idiot!

To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness – that is a very terrible thing.

The point is not that I don’t recognise bad people when I see them – I grant you I may quite well be taken in by them – the point is that I know a good person when I see one.

It wasn’t a bit of good fighting grown-ups. They could do exactly as they liked.

Mothers and dogs both had a kind of second sight that made them see into people’s minds and know when anything unusual was going on.

You are honest enough by nature to be able to see and judge your own self clearly – and that is a great thing.

I get over a hundred letters a day from all over the world, from children and parents, and it’s a wonder I ever have time to write books, let alone speak!

If you can’t look after something in your care, you have no right to keep it.

The secret island had looked mysterious enough on the night they had seen it before – but now, swimming in the hot June haze, it seemed more enchanting than ever.

I don’t want people to think I’m not happy when we win – I am. But there’s a difference between being happy for the feeling of accomplishing something and being overjoyed and feeling, ‘This is it – we conquered the world.’ We didn’t. We just won a game.

I think center is a critical position.

We think of the Christian life as a ‘changed life’ but it is not that. What God offers us is an ‘exchanged life,’ a ‘substituted life,’ and Christ is our Substitute within.

I think we have all experienced passion that is not in any sense reasonable.

In your twenties, you think you are immortal. In your thirties, you hope you are immortal.

I think my view is that whenever you project into the future you’re never likely to be accurate in the details, or the paraphernalia and style. It’s in the spirit of it.

I like to think that the Grand Prix helped Long Beach to pretty much change its image.

I don’t watch television, I think it destroys the art of talking about oneself.