Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett Quotes

“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 some one 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.” She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the window-seat and jumped down from her comfortable corner.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve, were never made to cry by this most envied of them all. She was a motherly young person, and when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them up and patted them, or found in her pocket a bonbon or some other article of a soothing nature. She never pushed them out of her way or alluded to their years as a humiliation and a blot upon their small characters. “If you are four you are four,” she said severely to Lavinia on an occasion of her having — it must be confessed — slapped Lottie and called her “a brat”; “but you will be five next year, and six the year after that. And,” opening large, convicting eyes, “it only takes sixteen years to make you twenty.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“When the square suddenly seemed to begin to glow in an enchanted way and look wonderful in spite of its sooty trees and railings, Sara knew something was going on in the sky; and when it was at all possible to leave the kitchen without being missed or called back, she invariably stole away and crept up the flights of stairs, and, climbing on the old table, got her head and body as far out of the window as possible. When she had accomplished this, she always drew a long breath and looked all round her. It used to seem as if she had all the sky and the world to herself. No one else ever looked out of the other attics. Generally the skylights were closed; but even if they were propped open to admit air, no one seemed to come near them.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“Nature having made her for a giver — had not the least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor she seemed. 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, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sara tells me when she puts me to bed.” “You wicked thing,” said Lavinia, turning on Sara; “making fairy stories about heaven.” “There are much more splendid stories in Revelation,” returned Sara. “Just look and see! How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can tell you” — with a fine bit of unheavenly temper— “you will never find out whether they are or not if you’re not kinder to people than you are now. Come along, Lottie.” And she marched out of the room, rather hoping that she might see the little servant again somewhere, but she found no trace of her when she got into the hall.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“Sara sat upon the hearth-rug and told her strange things. She sat rather huddled up, and her green eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. She told stories of the voyage, and stories of India; but what fascinated Ermengarde the most was her fancy about the dolls who walked and talked, and who could do anything they chose when the human beings were out of the room, but who must keep their powers a secret and so flew back to their places “like lightning” when people returned to the room. “We couldn’t do it,” said Sara, seriously. “You see, it’s a kind of magic.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in his native land — which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase-book from her, with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Minchin. “Ah, madame,” he said, “there is not much I can teach her. She has not learned French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“They were as real as Sara, and it was careless of them not to come out of the story shadowland and say, “Here I am — tell about me.” But they did not — which was their fault and not mine. People who live in the story one is writing ought to come forward at the beginning and tap the writing person on the shoulder and say, “Hallo, what about me?” If they don’t, no one can be blamed but themselves and their slouching, idle ways.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“I do not know whether many people realize how much more than is ever written there really is in a story — how many parts of it are never told — how much more really happened than there is in the book one holds in one’s hand and pores over. Stories are something like letters. When a letter is written, how often one remembers things omitted and says, “Ah, why did I not tell them that?” In writing a book one relates all that one remembers at the time, and if one told all that really happened perhaps the book would never end. Between the lines of every story there is another story, and that is one that is never heard and can only be guessed at by the people who are good at guessing. The person who writes the story may never know all of it, but sometimes he does and wishes he had the chance to begin again. When I wrote the story of “Sara Crewe” I guessed that a great deal more had happened at Miss Minchin’s than I had had time to find out just then.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett

“This novel was in a sense developed in stages. First published as a series in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1887 as Sara Crewe, or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s, it proved extremely popular and Burnett followed this with an equally popular dramatisation of the serial, re-named The Little Princess. Burnett was then persuaded to re-write the fictional version under the new name, whilst including the numerous amendments she had made to the story in the play.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Complete Novels of Frances Hodgson Burnett