“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.”

The little island seemed to float on the dark lake-waters. Trees grew on it, and a little hill rose in the middle of it. It was a mysterious island, lonely and beautiful.

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.

I do love the beginning of the summer hols,’ said Julian. They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages.’ ‘They go so nice and slowly at first,’ said Anne, his little sister. ‘Then they start to gallop.

Well, we must be jolly old-fashioned then,’ said Bessie. ‘Because we not only believe in the Faraway Tree and love our funny friends there, but we go to see them too – and we visit the lands at the top of the Tree as well!

Remorse is a terrible thing to bear, Pam, one of the worst of all punishments in this life.

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.

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.

A thought-provoking recipe for reclaiming America’s heritage of liberty and self-governance.

Claim it. Believe it. Accept it.  

You cannot reclaim what you have spent.

Everybody in politics claims to want to get everybody out of poverty. What’s the opposite? Wealth. And what is often criticized by the left? Wealth.

Free speech gives us the ability to react vigorously with effective arguments and expose the weakness and misdirection of the other side’s claims.

Impatience and stupidity claim more victims than any weapon.

We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.

For all the claims that we now live in a society free of racism, the tragedies that presently overwhelm us are a stiff dose of reality.