Edith Nesbit > Quotes

“There's no end to this tunnel', said Phyllis - and indeed it did seem very, very long.
'Stick to it', said Peter; 'everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep on.'
Which is quite true, if you come to think of it, and a useful thing to remember in seasons of trouble - such as measles, arithmetic, impositions, and those times when you are in disgrace , and feel as though no one would ever love you again, and you could never - never again - love anybody.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children

“But the dragon was asleep under the whirlpools, and when he woke up from being asleep he found he was drowned, so there was an end of him.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Book of Dragons

“but we thought perhaps the G. B.—it is short for Generous Benefactor—would not like it if there were so many of us. I have often noticed that it is the worst of our being six—people think six a great many, when it’s children. That sentence looks wrong somehow. I mean they don’t mind six pairs of boots, or six pounds of apples, or six oranges, especially in equations, but they seem to think you ought not to have five brothers and sisters.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“And Dora is right sometimes, though she is our elder sister.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers

“[I]t is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably sinful at one and the same time.”
― Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It

“This lady had never been at all kind to him, and he had no reason to love her; but the fact was that he wanted to love somebody, and as he hadn't seen the right lady, he was obliged to love the wrong one.”
― Edith Nesbit, Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

“I suppose I shall HAVE to be married some day," said Peter, "but it will be an awful bother having her round all the time. I'd like to marry a lady who had trances, and only woke up once or twice a year.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children

“My Princess," he said tenderly, "two great powers are on our side: the power of Love and the power of Arithmetic. Those two are stronger than anything else in the world.”
― Edith Nesbit, The Book of Dragons

“And Mr Perks proposed a toast, also honoured in tea, and the toast was, ‘May the garland of friendship be ever green,’ which was much more poetical than anyone had expected from him.”
― Edith Nesbit