Richmal Crompton > Quotes

“Having come to the conclusion that there was so much to do that she didn’t know where to start, Mrs Fowler decided not to start at all. She went to the library, took Diary of a Nobody from the shelves and, returning to her wicker chair under the lime tree, settled down to waste what precious hours still remained of the day.”
― Richmal Crompton, Family Roundabout

“William: You'd look better with your hair chopped off.
Reggie: You'd look better with your face chopped off.”
― Richmal Crompton, William's Happy Days

“ Readin' all those books makes me wonder whether
anyone ever dies natural."

" They don't," said William mysteriously. " Robert
says so. At least he says there's hundreds an' thousands
of murders what no one finds out. You see, you c'n
only find out a person's died nacheral by cuttin' 'em
up an' they've not got time to cut everyone up what
dies. They've simply not got the time. They do
it like what they do with our desks at school. They
jus' open one sometimes to see if it's all right. They've
not got time to open 'em all every day. An' same as
every time they do open a desk they find it untidy, jus'
in the same way whenever they do cut anyone dead
up they find he's been poisoned. Practically always.
Robert says so. He says that the amount of people
who poison people who aren't cut up and don't get
found out mus' be enormous. Jus' think of it. People
pois'nin' people all over the place an' no one findin' out.

If I was a policeman I'd cut everyone dead up.
But they aren't any use, policemen aren't. Why, in
all those books I've read there hasn't been a single
policeman that was any good at all. They simply
don't know what to do when anyone murders anyone.
Why, you remember in ' The Mystery of the Yellow
Windows,' the policemen were s' posed to have searched
the room for clues an' they di'n't notice the cigarette
end what the murd'rer had left in the fender and what
had the address of the people what made it on it an'
what was a sort they made special for him. Well,
that shows you what the policemen are, dun't it ? I
mean, they look very swanky in their hats an' buttons
an' all that, but when it comes to a murder or cuttin'
dead people up or findin' out murd'rers, they aren't
any good at all. Why, in all those myst'ry tales we've
read, it's not been the police that found the murd'rers
at all. It's been ordinary people same as you an' me
jus' usin' common sense an' pickin' up cigarette ends
an' such-like. . . . Tell you what it is," he said, warm-
ing to his theme, " policemen have gotter be stupid
'cause of their clothes. I mean, all the policemen's
clothes are made so big that they've gotter be very
big men to fit 'em an' big men are always stupid 'cause
of their strength all goin' to their bodies 'stead of their
brains. That stands to reason, dun't it ? ”
― Richmal Crompton

“Butler: Do you think I look deaf?
William: Whadda I know. You look like you could be anything.”
― Richmal Crompton, William's Happy Days

“With one sweep of his gorry blade three pleecemen’s heads roled of into a heep. He shot another through the brane, another fell strangled, an’ another, wot had a week hart, fell down dead at the horrible site. Only one was left.”
― Richmal Crompton, William Again

“He’s up there talkin’,’ he muttered scornfully. ‘Doesn’t he talk?’ The tone of contempt was oil on the troubled waters of William’s feelings. ‘I’ve just bit him hard,’ he said modestly.”
― Richmal Crompton, William The Fourth - TV tie-edition: 90th Anniversary Edition

“Uncle George was William's godfather, and he was intensely interested in William's upbringing. It was an interest with which William would gladly have dispensed. Uncle George's annual visit was to William a purgatory only to be endured by a resolutely philosophic attitude of mind and the knowledge that sooner or later it must come to an end.”
― Richmal Crompton, More William

“All gotter be equal,’ he pronounced fiercely, ‘all gotter have lots of money. All ’uman beings. That’s sense, isn’t it? Is it sense or isn’t it?”
― Richmal Crompton, William The Fourth - TV tie-edition: 90th Anniversary Edition

“She felt their hostility as she gave her message, and suddenly she feared them. They were ignorant, stupid, evil, but they stood for something that is colossally powerful—for conformity, for convention, for the narrow hypocrisy that ever apes its neighbours. They had behind them the power of countless ages and of countless dim unthinking souls. None so bitter as these worshippers of the normal, none so eager to persecute those who strayed from their fold or had never belonged to it. There was no gainsaying their power . . . Marcia felt it there in the little sunny drawing-room as she faced the four women.”
― Richmal Crompton, Leadon Hill

“The Outlaws loved cellars. … There was a door under the stairs. They opened it. There were steps. Yes, most certainly cellars. Very cautiously the little procession crept down. Glorious cellars, enormous cellars, heavenly vistas of cellars opening out of each other. They explored blissfully for some time for sheer love of exploration.”
― Richmal Crompton, William in Trouble

“He began to dislike her intensely. Fussy ole thing! Believing everything everyone said to her! Interfering”
― Richmal Crompton, William Again

“ Let's be detectives when we grow up," suggested Douglas.

" No," said William. " It's more fun bein' the man that comes along an' finds out all about it when the detectives have stopped tryin'. I'm goin to be one of that sort. I'm goin' to go on readin' myst'ry tales all the time from now till I'm grown up an' then I bet there won't be any way of killin' folks that I won't know all about so I'll be able to catch all the murd'rers there are an' I bet I'll be famous an' they'll put up a stachoo to me when I'm dead."

" I bet they won't," said Ginger, irritated by William's egotism. " You'll prob'ly get murdered yourself before you've tound out anythin' at all an' then Douglas an' Henry an' me' 11 find out who did it an' get famous.”
― Richmal Crompton, William

“Why can’t grown-ups just give me stuff, let me do what I like and then go away A LOT?”
― Richmal Crompton, William Again