The Story of Doctor Dolittle Quotes

“I was thinking about people," said Polynesia." People make me sick. They think they're so wonderful. The world has been going on now for thousands of years, hasn't it? And the only thing in animal language that people have learned to understand is that when a dog wags his tail he means 'I'm glad'! It's funny isn't it? You are the very first man to talk like us. Oh, sometimes people annoy me dreadfully - such airs they put on, talking about 'the dumb animals.' Dumb! Huh! Why I knew a macaw once who could say 'Good morning' in seven different ways.”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself,

"Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed--No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes--hundreds of 'em--cubs; and--"

"Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?" asked the Doctor.

"Why, of course!" said Jip. "And those are only a few of the easy smells--the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I'll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind--a few of the dainty ones."

Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.

For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.

"Bricks," he whispered, very low--"old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote--or perhaps a
granary--with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses' drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting
through the rotting leaves; and--and--and--"

"Any parsnips?" asked Gub-Gub.

"No," said Jip. "You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever.”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“Money," he said, "is a terrible nuisance. But it's nice not to have to worry.”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“What I am wondering," said the Doctor, "is where we are going to get another boat to go home in...Oh well, perhaps we'll find one lying about on the beach that nobody is using.”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“The noise they made was so great that sailors far out at sea thought that a terrible storm was coming. "Hark to that gale howling in the East!" they said.”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“Never lift your foot till you come to the stile.”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“them—or something like it. They even got the Doctor some tobacco one day, when he had finished what he had brought with him and wanted to smoke. At night they slept in tents made of palm leaves, on thick, soft beds of dried grass. And after a while they got used to walking such a lot and did not get so tired and enjoyed the life of travel very much. But they were always glad when the night came and they stopped for their resting time. Then the Doctor used to make a little fire of sticks; and after they had had their supper, they would sit round it in a ring, listening to Polynesia singing songs about the sea, or to Chee-Chee telling stories of the jungle. And many of the tales that Chee-Chee told were very interesting. Because although the monkeys had no history books of their own before Doctor Dolittle came to write them for them, they remember everything that happens by telling stories to their children. And Chee-Chee spoke of many things his grandmother had told him—tales of long, long, long ago, before Noah and the Flood—of the days when men dressed in bearskins and lived in holes in the rock and ate their mutton raw because they did not know what cooking was, never having seen a fire. And he told them of the great mammoths, and lizards as long as a train, that wandered over the mountains in those times, nibbling from the treetops. And often they got so interested listening that when he had finished they found their fire had gone right out, and they had to scurry around to get more sticks and build a new one. Now, when the King’s army had gone back and told the King that they couldn’t find the Doctor, the King sent them out again and told them they must stay in the jungle till they caught him. So all this time, while the Doctor and his animals were going along toward the Land of the Monkeys, thinking themselves quite safe, they were still being followed by the King’s men. If Chee-Chee had known this, he would most likely have hidden them again. But he didn’t know it. One day Chee-Chee climbed up a high rock and looked out over the treetops. And when he came down he said they were now quite close to the Land of the Monkeys and would soon be there. And that same evening, sure enough, they saw Chee-Chee’s cousin and a lot of other monkeys, who had not yet gotten sick, sitting in the trees by the edge of a swamp, looking and waiting for them. And when they saw the famous doctor really come, these monkeys made a tremendous noise, cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the branches to greet him. They wanted to carry his bag and his trunk and everything he had. And one of the bigger ones even carried Gub-Gub, who had gotten”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“Rappee!”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“where the”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle

“«Pensavo agli uomini» disse Polinesia. «Gli uomini mi fanno ridere. Si credono tanto in gamba. Il mondo va avanti da migliaia di anni, ormai, non è vero? E la sola cosa che abbiano imparato del linguaggio degli animali è che quando un cane scodinzola vuol dire: “Sono contento!” È buffo, no? Tu sei senza dubbio il primo uomo in grado di parlare come noi. Oh, a volte la gente mi irrita terribilmente, e che arie si danno quando si riferiscono agli “stupidi animali”. Stupidi, eh?! Be’, io ho conosciuto un pappagallo ara che sapeva dire “Buongiorno” in sette maniere diverse, senza mai aprir bocca. Conosceva tutte le lingue del mondo, compreso il greco. Lo comprò un vecchio professore dalla barba grigia. Ma il pappagallo non rimase con lui. Diceva che il vecchio non parlava bene il greco e lui non poteva sopportare di sentirglielo insegnare tutto sbagliato. Mi chiedo spesso che fine abbia fatto. Quell’uccello era più bravo in geografia di quanto potranno mai esserlo gli uomini. Gli uomini! Accidenti, penso che se mai impareranno a volare, come qualsiasi passerotto, non la smetteranno più di vantarsene!» «Sei un vecchio uccello saggio» disse il dottore. «Quanti anni hai esattamente? So che a volte i pappagalli e gli elefanti diventano molto, molto vecchi.» «Non ricordo mai di preciso quanti anni ho» disse Polinesia. «Sono centottantatré o centottantadue. So”
― Hugh Lofting, La storia del Dottor Dolittle (Le Fenici)

“when”
― Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolittle