The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail Quotes

“[T]he name that matters is the name you make for yourself in a life of struggle and success!”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“Every time a human walks out of a room, something with more feet walks in.

For every job a human holds, there is a mouse with the same job and doing it better.

You don't see a cat that shocked every day of the week. Even her whiskers looked scandalized.

Time you saw a bit of the world, if you're to find your place in it, the horse said. Nobody ever learned who he was by staying in the stable.

He was the picture of skepticism. Also pomposity.

He was so noble a figure that I could scarcely look at him full on. Every bit of his bearing was living proof of the grandeur mice can rise to. British mice.

Of course they would be foreign, being bats. Romanian, Transylvanian, Something.

The Belgians followed in a great mob. And hard on their heels the Spanish, their claws clicking like castanets across the marble. Then the Russians in all their barbaric splendor. Romanov rodents in caterpillar-fur caps. Even one of the Gorgonzola princes from Italy, looking very blue-veined.”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“Yes, I think you'll find that all the best teachers are old bats.”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“Years seemed to pass, though years can’t do that among mice. But you know how time seems to stand still at school. Then my school days were over—in a twinkling. I broke two rules when one would do. And the timing was not good. It all happened only two days before Queen Victoria’s great jubilee. If I could just have held out a day or so more, there’d have been a school party. With cake. Cheese cake.”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“pinned me to the floor. He was all over me, and the smell was staggering. Now he was speaking moistly into my free ear. His knee was in my back. “You do not know your place, Mouse Minor, you unpleasant morsel of cat meat. Mere nephews ought not be allowed. Never nephews.” And once again the day went dark. From the first morning of my schooling to the last afternoon, I mixed it up with the sons of all the best families in the Mews: all the mice of merit, all the rodents of rank. One or the other of my eyes was blacked most of the time. Both my ears got notched. I was quick with my fists and a little undersized and nobody’s child. And I spoke before I thought. It didn’t help that I had a better-looking uniform than theirs. With a heavy heart and a packed lunch somebody was sure to steal, I slumped each morning through the tunnel to school, dragging my question mark tail.”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“He was easily four times my size, was Fitzherbert, and smelled of drains.”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“nincompoop”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“Royal[s] can't manage on their own.”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail

“Princes have far more toys than they need.”
― Richard Peck, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail