"Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

" If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.
"
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

"Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, a thistle cannot grow."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

"Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.

"It makes me feel as if something had hit me," Sara had told Ermengarde once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help and comfort and laughter--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in, you may never get over it as long as you live."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

"I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he?
"
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people...Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"Oh,Sara. It is like a story." "It is a story...everything is a story. You are a story-I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"The air was full of spices... A Little Princess"
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

"Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child, and no one will ever know, just beecause I never have any trials. (Sara Crewe, A Little Princess)"
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worse thing never quite comes."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

"As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly little whistle gave her a pleased feeling--even a disagreeable little girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He was not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden and knew all about it."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

""People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises.""
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

"She looked into the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of sobbing- Sara who never cried."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

""She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of and what you do.""
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

""are you learning me by heart little Sara No I know you by heart you are inside my heart""
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. "
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (Secret Garden, Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy: Three Complete Novels)

"However many years she lived, Mary always felt that 'she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow'."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

""When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stuping things they wish they hadn's said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger.""
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess)

"The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts- just mere thoughts- are as powerful as electric batteries- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got you in you may never get over it as long as you live."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true too . . . she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived."
— Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Oh, how she did love that queer, common boy!"
— Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)