Frances Hodgson Burnett Quotes

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.

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.

I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.

How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.

At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.

Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.

Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.

As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive.

When a man looks at the stars, he grows calm and forgets small things. They answer his questions and show him that his earth is only one of the million worlds. Hold your soul still and look upward often, and you will understand their speech. Never forget the stars.

Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way - or always to have it.

Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden-in all the places.

Nothing in the world is so strong as a kind heart.

Everything's a story - You are a story -I am a story.

And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.

Only in dreams of spring Shall I ever see again The flowering of my cherry trees.

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.

Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it.

All women are princesses , it is our right.

She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of and what you do.

Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials.

Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.

I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.

I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat,” she mused. “Nobody likes you. People jump and run away and scream out: ‘Oh, a horrid rat!’ I shouldn’t like people to scream and jump and say: ‘Oh, a horrid Sara!’ the moment they saw me, and set traps for me, and pretend they were dinner. It’s so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said: ‘Wouldn’t you rather be a sparrow?

Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"... "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine.

Mistress Mary Quite Contrary

Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worse thing never quite comes.

To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in, you may never get over it as long as you live.

As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.

I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us

When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies.

Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.

Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.

In the garden there was nothing which was not quite like themselves - nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them - the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an end... there could have been no happiness even in that golden springtime air.

Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off and they are nearly always doing it.

It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.

Perhaps you can feel if you can’t hear,” was her fancy. “Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don’t know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again.

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.

However many years she lived, Mary always felt that 'she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow'.

The air was full of spices... A Little Princess

My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if they're rich and important.

Folks who make such a fuss about their rights turn them into wrongs sometimes. -- (from Behind the White Brick)

One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon was high and full and all the world was purple shadow and silver.

She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head.

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true too . . . she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.

The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off - and they are nearly always doing it.

I pretend I am a princess,so that I can try and behave like one.

On the hob was a little brass kettle, hissing and boiling; spread upon the floor was a warm, thick rug; before the fire was a folding-chair, unfolded and with cushions on it; by the chair was a small folding-table, unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it were spread small covered dishes, a cup and saucer, and a tea-pot; on the bed were new, warm coverings, a curious wadded silk robe, and some books. The little, cold, miserable room seemed changed into Fairyland. It was actually warm and glowing.

The mug from the washstand was used as Becky's tea cup, and the tea was so delicious that it was not necessary to pretend that it was anything but tea.

a person who was clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust or deliberately unkind to anyone.