"I think we ought to live happily ever after. "
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"You must admit I have a right to live in a pigsty if I want."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"I think we ought to live happily ever after," and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more hair-raising than any storybook made it sound, though she was determined to try. "It should be hair-raising," added Howl.
"And you'll exploit me," Sophie said.
"And then you'll cut up all my suits to teach me."
— Diana Wynne Jones

"I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Castle in the Air)

"In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

""Go to bed, you fool," Calcifer said sleepily. "You're drunk."
"Who, me?" said Howl. "I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober." He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him. -- "
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Take it from me, Fate doesn't care most of the time."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Castle in the Air)

"Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet.

"I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"I can't abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Castle in the Air)

"If I give you a hint and tell you it's a hint, it will be information."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Howl: "I've got a hangover"
Sophie: "No, you hit you head on the floor"
Howl: "I can't stay. I've got to rescue that fool Sophie.""
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"This book will prove the following ten facts:
1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there.
2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch.
3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight.
5. Music does not always sooth the troubled beast.
6. An Englishman's home is his castle.
7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
8. One black eye deserves another.
9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm.
10. It pays to increase your word power."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Archer's Goon)

"He picked up the skull and knocked an onion ring out of its eye socket.
"I see Sophie has been busy again. Couldn't you have restrained her, my friend?" The skull yattered its teeth at him. Howl put it down rather hastily."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Nobody gets praised for the right reasons."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Castle in the Air)

"Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.
"
— Diana Wynne Jones

"Abdullah: "Tell me about this Wizard Howl of yours."
Sophie: "He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything."
Abdullah: "Indeed? Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies."
Sophie: "What do you mean, vices? I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he's dead!""
— Diana Wynne Jones (Castle in the Air)

"That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.'"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"I hope your bacon burns"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"I make that four horses and ten men just to get rid of one old woman. What did you do to the King?"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

""I'm going up to my room now, where I may die."
Howl, upon having a cold"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"She was remorseless, but she lacked method. "
— Diana Wynne Jones

"It was only when Shona, in sheer fury, turned the carnivorous sheep among them that they moved. They ran, some of them with charming little white sheep attached to their legs or backsides and the rest shouting about monsters."
— Diana Wynne Jones (The Dark Lord of Derkholm)

"She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.
-the Witch of the Waste"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"'This is the mythosphere. It's made up of all the stories, theories and beliefs, legends, myths and hopes, that are generated here on Earth. As you can see, it's constantly growing and moving as people invent new tales to tell or find new things to believe. The older strands move out to become these spirals, where things tend to become quite crude and dangerous. They've hardened off, you see.'"
— Diana Wynne Jones (The Game)

"Sophie did not care to think how Howl might react if Fanny woke him by stabbing him with her parasol"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"What a strange family you are! Is your name Lettie too?
-Howl"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Go to bed, you fool," Calcifer said sleepily. "You're drunk."
"Who, me? I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober." He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him.
"What a lie that was!" Howl remarked as he walked into the wall. "My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.""
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober"
-Howl"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Pray use both cats as sponges if it pleases you, infatuated infantryman.

-Abdullah"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Castle in the Air)

"A garden should be natural-seeming, with wild sections, including a large area of bluebells."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Castle in the Air)

"I am really very grateful for this Award. It is one of the first given to a woman, and to two women at that. When I first started getting work published, I used to have wistful thoughts at the way all important awards were given to men. Women, I used to think, could be as innovative, imaginative and productive as possible - and women were the ones mostly at work in the field of fantasy for children and young adults - but only let a man enter the field, and people instantly regarded what he had to say and what he did as more Important. He got respectful reviews as well as awards, even if what he was doing - which it often was - was imitating the women. But you have changed all that.
Thank you for being so enlightened.
Women, large-minded, formidable women, have played an almost exclusive part in helping my career. I have hardly ever dealt with a man - at least, when it came to publishing: "
— Diana Wynne Jones

"I assure you, my friends. I am cone sold stober."
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"Christopher discovered that you dealt with obnoxious masters and most older boys the way you dealt with governesses: you quite politely told them the truth in the way they wanted to hear it, so that they thought they had won and left you in peace."
— Diana Wynne Jones (The Lives of Christopher Chant)

""Goats," said Maxwell Hyde, "are a special case. Mad as hatters, all of them.""
— Diana Wynne Jones (The Merlin Conspiracy)

"Ve y atrapa una estrella fugaz,
logra una raíz de mandrágora con un niño,
dime donde están todos los años pasados,
o quién quebró el pie del Diablo.
Enséñame a escuchar el canto de las sirenas,
o a mantener alejada la picadura de la envidia,
y encuentra
qué viento
hace avanzar a una mente honesta.


Si has nacido para ver cosas extrañas,
cosas invisibles al ojo,
cabalga diez mil días y noches
hasta que la edad cubra de nieve tus cabellos.
Cuando retornes, me contarás
las extrañas maravillas que te acontecieron,
y jurarás
que en ningún lugar
vive una mujer justa y constante.
Si tú…"
— Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle)

"I've seen golems. They don't behave like a real person."
— Diana Wynne Jones (The Year of the Griffin)

"He scarcely saw his parents. When Christopher was small, he was terrified that he would meet Papa out walking in the Park one day and not recognize him.

~~opening lines from "The Lives of Christopher Chant""
— Diana Wynne Jones