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

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!

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.

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.

Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.

We hadn’t lost morale. But when you fight for four quarters, it’s tough to always bounce back. The offense kept us in the game the last two weeks and to get out with a win feels really good.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that’s the right song to not fight the lyric.

Gays are beginning to realize what blacks learned long ago: Unless you are out here fighting for yourself then nobody else will help you. I think the gay community has a moral obligation to continue the fight.

We, the women of the Senate, with President Obama by our side, will keep fighting – our shoulders square, our lipstick on – because you deserve equal pay for your hard work.

It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential.

Fighting the terrorists in Syria is not only in the interest of Syria or the Syrian people; in the interest of the Middle East, of Europe itself.

I think I’m getting better at being verbal. I used to have a lot of problems with it. I had my own little demons that I was fighting, and I used the banjo as an escape.