E. Nesbit > Quotes

“Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing a book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right--in the way that's best for us."
Do you really believe that, Mother?" Peter asked quietly.
Yes," she said, "I do believe it--almost always--except when I'm so sad that I can't believe anything. But even when I don't believe it, I know it's true--and I try to believe it.”
― E. Nesbit

“People think six is a great many, when it's children. ...they don't mind six pairs of boots, or six pounds of apples, or six oranges, especially in equations, but they seem to think that you ought not to have five brothers and sisters.”
― E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“There are brown eyes in the world, after all, as well as blue, and one pair of brown that meant heaven to me as the blue had never done”
― E. Nesbit

“This is why I shall not tell you in this story about all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, 'thus the sad days passed slowly by'--or 'the years rolled on their weary course'--or 'time went on'--because it is silly; of course time goes on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice, interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that.”
― E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true--such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.”
― E. Nesbit

“There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read - unless it be reading while you eat. Amabel did both: they are not the same thing, as you will see if you think the matter over.”
― E. Nesbit

“...Albert-next-door doesn't care for reading, and he has not read nearly so many books as we have, so he is very foolish and ignorant, but it cannot be helped... Besides, it is wrong to be angry with people for not being so clever as you are yourself.”
― E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“Time is but a mode of thought”
― E. Nesbit

“Ladylike is the beastliest word there is, I think. If a girl isn't a lady, it isn't worth while to be only like one, she'd better let it alone and be a free and happy bounder.”
― E. Nesbit, The New Treasure Seekers

“Grown-up people find it difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy.”
― E. Nesbit

“It is all very wonderful and mysterious, as all life is apt to be if you go a little below the crust, and are not content just to read newspapers and go by the Tube Railway, and buy your clothes ready-made, and think nothing can be true unless it is uninteresting.”
― E. Nesbit, The House of Arden

“There are a thousand spears in my back,' said a little sharp voice, 'and they are all devoted to the Princess and to her alone.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“Then suddenly Jack was a changed boy. Something wonderful had happened to him, and it had made him different. It sometimes happened to people that they see or hear something quite wonderful and then they are never altogether the same again.”
― E. Nesbit, The Old Nursery Stories

“They call it love," said Vernon. "I don't know what they mean by it. What do you mean [by love]?"

"I don't exactly know," said Temple slowly. "I suppose it's wanting to be with a person, and thinking about nothing else. And thinking they're the most beautiful and all that. And going over everything that they've ever said to you, and wanting— Well, I suppose if it's really love you want to marry them.”
― E. Nesbit, The Incomplete Amorist

“Gerald's look assured her that he and the others would be as near angels as children could be without ceasing to be human.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“Daddy dear, I'm only four
And I'd rather not be more.
Four's the nicest age to be,
Two and two and one and three.
What I love is two and two,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and you.
What you love is one and three,
Mother, Peter, Phil, and me.
Give your little girl a kiss
Because she learned and told you this.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Out, out, into the night,
The belfry bells are ours by right!”
― E. Nesbit, The Magic World

“If you say that the China Cat might have lost its ear-tips in battle you are the kind of person who always makes difficulties, and you may be quite sure that the kind of splendid magics that happened to Tavy will never happen to you.”
― E. Nesbit, The Magic World

“Our darling Roberta,
No sorrow shall hurt her
If we can prevent it
Her whole life long.
Her birthday's our fete day,
We'll make it our great day,
And give her our presents
And sing her our song.
May pleasures attend her
And may the Fates send her
The happiest journey
Along her life's way.
With skies bright above her
And dear ones to love her!
Dear Bob! Many happy
Returns of the day!”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Aunt Emily says grown-ups never really like playing. They do it to please us."

"They little know," Gerald answered, "how often we do it to please them.”
― E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle

“I don't agree with you in the least," said Temple— "about marriage, I mean. A man ought to want to get married—"

"To anybody? Without its being anybody in particular?"

"Yes," said Temple stoutly. "If he gets to thirty without wanting to marry any one in particular, he ought to look about till he finds some one he does want. It's the right and proper thing to marry and have kiddies.”
― E. Nesbit, The Incomplete Amorist

“everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep all on.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing the book, I might make mistakes. But God knows how to make the story end just right—in the way that's best for us.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“What a night it was! The jagged masses of heavy dark cloud were rolling at intervals from horizon to horizon, and thin white wreaths covered the stars. Through all the rush of the cloud river the moon swam, breasting the waves and disappearing again in the darkness.

I walked up and down, drinking in the beauty of the quiet earth and the changing sky. The night was absolutely silent. Nothing seemed to be abroad. There was no scurrying of rabbits, or twitter of the half-asleep birds. And though the clouds went sailing across the sky, the wind that drove them never came low enough to rustle the dead leaves in the woodland paths. Across the meadows I could see the church tower standing out black and grey against the sky. ("Man Size In Marble")”
― E. Nesbit, Ghost Stories

“Sometimes the thought of his mother working so hard while he did nothing would come suddenly upon his and he would rush off and try to help her, but whatever he did turned out wrong. ...So that it always ended in his mother saying, 'Oh, run along for goodness' sakes, and let me get on with my work.' And then Jack would go and lie on his front...and make up pretty poems about the Dignity of Labor, or about how dear and good mothers are.”
― E. Nesbit

“the rule of the giant's wife, a most worthy woman, whose only fault was that she was to ready to trust boys.”
― E. Nesbit

“There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society.”
― E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

“Oh, Len, isn’t she a darling? Just because she saw how our Bandboxful of furniture would rattle about in that big house like a peanut in a cocoanut shell, to lend us all hers! She is a darling.”
― E. Nesbit, The Red House