Cressida Cowell > Quotes

“There's no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup, only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imagination”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

“Twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“Thank you for nothing, you stupid reptile.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don’t mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords…I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.

And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work together…and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Speak Dragonese

“Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak.

Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

“For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“But then I have always been somewhat of a square peg in a round hole.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Speak Dragonese

“The past is another land, and we cannot go to visit. So, if I say there were dragons, and men who rode upon their backs, who alive has been there and can tell me that I'm wrong?”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Be a Pirate

“We're all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.”
― Cressida Cowell

“I was not a natural. . . . This is the story of becoming . . . the Hard Way.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“Wartihog put up his hand. "What happens if we can't read, sir?"

"No boasting, Wartihog!" boomed Gobber. "Get some idiot to read it for you.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“Oh, for Thor's sake..." said Hiccup. "I thought that was just a story..."
"Stories come from somewhere," said the witch. "The past haunts the present in more ways than we realise.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Break a Dragon's Heart

“The thing about grown ups is that they're always wanting you to be this Great Hero and Leader. What's wrong with being NORMAL, for Thor's sake? What's wrong with just being SO-SO at stuff? They're just totally unrealistic...”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“Remember, there is nothing wrong with a healthy sense of self-respect.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword

“But how can we know that dragons did not exist? We have never actually BEEN to the Dark Ages.”
― Cressida Cowell, A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

“I myself grew up to be not only a Hero, but also a Writer. When I was an adult, I rewrote A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons, and I included not only some descriptions of the various deadly dragon species, and a useful Dragonese Dictionary, but also this story of how the book came to be written in the first place.

This is the book that you are holding in your hands right now.

Perhaps you even borrowed it from a Library?

If so, thank Thor that the sinister figure of the Hairy Scary Librarian is not lurking around a corner, hiding in the shadows, Heart-Slicers at the ready, or that the punishment for your curiosity is not the whirring whine of a Driller Dragon's drill.

You, dear reader, I am sure cannot imagine what it might to be like to live in a world in which books are banned.

For surely such things will never happen in the Future?

Thank Thor that you live in a time and a place where people have the right to live and think and write and read their books in peace, and there are no need for Heroes anymore ...

And spare a thought for those who have not been so lucky.”
― Cressida Cowell, A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

“Being frightened is not the same as being a coward.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

“That is a terrible plan."
"Hiccup's plans are always t-terrible."
"Hey! You're still here, aren't you?”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Speak Dragonese

“I forget myself sometimes, but then I look up, as I am looking up now, and I see in my mind's eye a sheild, strangely changed by a rich encrusting of jewel-like barnacles and cold-water coral, with an eight foot tooth sticking right out of the middle of it. I reach out and the edge of that tooth is still so bitingly sharp after all these years that just a gentle brush with the fingers might send a rain of blood down on these pages. And I bend my head, not too close, and I am sure I can hear, very faintly:

Once I set the sea alight
With a single fiery breath....
Once I was so mighty that I thought
My name was Death....
Sing out loud until you're eaten,
Song of melancholy blisss,
For the mighty and the middling
All shall come to THIS....

The Supper is still singing.”
― Cressida Cowell

“There were dragons when I was a boy.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“I didn't mean to come here...
And I didn't mean to stay...
It's just where the sea wind blew me
One accidental day...”
― Cressida Cowell - How to twist a dragons tale

“I NAME THIS LAND TOMORROW, FOR IT SHALL LAST FOREVERMORE!”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Break a Dragon's Heart

“The Hero cares not for a wild winter's storm. For it carries him swift on the back of the storm. All may be lost and our hearts may be worn, but a Hero fights forever.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

“History is a set of repeating circles, like the tide. The wind does blow through the ruins of tomorrow. But it is more a question of two steps forward, one step back. Humans and dragons make the same mistakes, again and again, but things do get better over time”
― Cressida Cowell

“It is a lot easier to be brave when you know you have no alternative.”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Train Your Dragon

“Books were despised by the Viking Tribes, as they were seen as a horrible civilizing influence and a threat to the barbarian culture.”
― Cressida Cowell, A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

“Because: Love Never Dies, What is Within is More Important than What is Without, The Best is Not Always the Most Obvious and Once You've Loved Truly, Thor, then You Know the Way”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury

“GO FOR HIS EYES! OR BITE HIM ON THE NOSE! DRAGON NOSES ARE VERY SENSITIVE!"
Oh, very helpful, Camicazi, very helpful...thought Hiccup. What if he doesn't obligingly hold me up to his nose? What if the only part I get close to is the TEETH?”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Break a Dragon's Heart

“The past haunts the present in more ways than we think. It certainly scares the living daylights out of ME"~ Old Wrinkly”
― Cressida Cowell, How to Break a Dragon's Heart