“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.”

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.

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!

Doctor Who is pretty dark, I think. Generally its dark; its always been dark.

[Scott Derrickson] is terrific, really sharp on the details, and he’s not afraid to go to dark places.

I don’t think it’s ever easy to be funny. I find it easy to amuse myself with a certain sort of cynical dark humor that tends toward the meaner side, like my character in Happy Gilmore. Those kinds of characters come easily to me.

I love dark chocolate – I could eat it ’til I puke.

It has been the White Race who has been the world builder, the maker of cities and commerce and continents. It is the White Man who is the sole builder of civilizations. It was he who build the Egyptian civilization,

When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we see. No, I won’t be afraid, no, I won’t be afraid, just as long as you stand, stand by me.

My dad would call me his Cuban princess because I had really dark olive skin because I was always in the sun; but I don’t really go in the sun anymore, so that is why I am so white.

I feel like there’s a lot of beauty in the darkness of ‘Narrow Stairs,’ but that’s not really a place I’m ready to go to for a while. I’m interested in taking a different approach and having the next record be different in tone – I’m just not interested in making another dark, dark album.