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Diana Wynne Jones Quotes

Diana Wynne Jones was a British writer, principally of fantasy novels for children and adults.

Some of her better-known works are the Chrestomanci series, the Dalemark series; the novels Howl's Moving Castle and Dark Lord of Derkholm; and The Tough Guide To Fantasyland.

✵ 16. August 1934 – 26. March 2011

Works

Howl's Moving Castle
Howl's Moving Castle
Diana Wynne Jones
Fire and Hemlock
Fire and Hemlock
Diana Wynne Jones
Castle in the Air
Castle in the Air
Diana Wynne Jones
Howl's Moving Castle
Howl's Moving Castle
Diana Wynne Jones
Fire and Hemlock
Fire and Hemlock
Diana Wynne Jones
Castle in the Air
Castle in the Air
Diana Wynne Jones
Diana Wynne Jones: 137 quotes2 likes

Famous Diana Wynne Jones Quotes

“I can't abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. "I'll make some hot buttered toast," she said. "Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy??" Howl asked. "Make toast!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Learn to drive?"
"Never," said Quentin. "My mission in life is to be a passenger.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Archer's Goon

Source: Archer's Goon

Diana Wynne Jones Quotes about thinking

“Sophie did not care to think how Howl might react if Fanny woke him by stabbing him with her parasol.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“But I do think that when people say 'a learning curve,' they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Enchanted Glass

Source: Enchanted Glass

“Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet.
"I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I think we ought to live happily ever after.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I don’t think I will get married,” Polly said as she stood up. “I’m going to train to be a hero instead.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock

Diana Wynne Jones Quotes about people

“You have no right to make jigsaws of people.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“The truth between two people always cuts two ways.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock

“You've no right to walk into people's castles and take their guitars.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock

“But I discovered that people like me -- they do, you know, if you like them -- and then it was all right.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“"Don't you even feel how marvellous it is to have talked to one of the Little People?" I said.
"No, not as the main thing," Grundo grunted. "If you think like that, then you're treating him like something in a museum, not as a person."”

Diana Wynne Jones

Source: Magids Series, The Merlin Conspiracy (2003), p. 150.

Diana Wynne Jones: Trending quotes

“I hope your bacon burns.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Diana Wynne Jones Quotes

“If I give you a hint and tell you it's a hint, it will be information.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I'm going up to my room now, where I may die.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Variant: I'm going to bed, where I may die.
Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle Series, Castle in the Air (1990), p. 31.
Context: "Maybe," he said, "you should be more careful about whom you let your dog bite."
"Not I!" said Jamal. "I am a believer of free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so."

“Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“I'm delirious. Spots are crawling before my eyes."
"Those are spiders.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Take it from me, Fate doesn't care most of the time.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“I've got a hangover."
"No, you hit your head on the floor."
"I can't stay. I've got to rescue that fool Sophie.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock (1985), p. 392.

“I make that four horses and ten men just to get rid of one old woman. What did youto the King?”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“So you were going to rescue the Prince! Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?"

"Not likely! I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Look. Survey. Inspect. My hair is ruined! I look like a pan of bacon and eggs!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Nobody gets praised for the right reasons.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“Things are going round and round in my head--or maybe my head is going round and round in things.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“A heart's a heavy burden.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock

“A fickle heart is the only constant in this world”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock

“Wizard Howl," said Wizard Suliman. "I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn't dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“He picked up the skull and knocked an onion ring out of its eye socket.
"I see Sophie has been busy again. Couldn't you have restrained her, my friend?" The skull yattered its teeth at him. Howl put it down rather hastily.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“She was remorseless, but she lacked method.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Interesting things did seem to happen, but always to somebody else.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“All she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to 'jutht TRY it.”

Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways

Source: House of Many Ways

“Howl’s voice was presently heard shouting weakly, “Help me, someone! I’m dying from neglect up here!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“It's amazing the way one can take a step ten and a half miles long and still always land in a cowpat.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Sophie said a bad word. In the dim light she had stubbed her toe on one of the many dusty bricks piled around the place.
Naughty-naughty" Twinkle said.
Oh shut up!" Sophie said, standing on one leg to hold her toe. "Why don't you grow up?”

Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways

Source: House of Many Ways

“Howl said to Sophie, "I've been wondering all along if you would turn out to be that lovely girl I met on May Day. Why were you scared then?”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Annoyed?” said Sophie. “Why should I be annoyed? Someone only filled the castle with rotten aspic, and deafened everyone in Porthaven, and scared Calcifer to a cinder, and broke a few hundred hearts. Why should that annoy me?”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Christopher discovered that you dealt with obnoxious masters and most older boys the way you dealt with governesses: you quite politely told them the truth in the way they wanted to hear it, so that they thought they had won and left you in peace.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Lives of Christopher Chant

Source: The Lives of Christopher Chant

“In addition, Master Twinkle seems convinced that someone is denying him a pair of stripey trousers.”

Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways

Source: House of Many Ways

“Goats," said Maxwell Hyde, "are a special case. Mad as hatters, all of them.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Merlin Conspiracy

Source: The Merlin Conspiracy

“I could cut a star out of paper and drop it.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Sorry, I've had enough of running away, Sophie. Now I've got something I want to protect. It's you.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Chrestomanci smiled and swept out of the room like a very long procession of one person.”

Diana Wynne Jones Charmed Life

Source: Charmed Life

“I seem to have excalibured this knife.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Enchanted Glass

Source: Enchanted Glass

“You cannot rob robbers with a kitten in your hat!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Tough Guide To Fantasyland

Source: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

“If you must know, I-I had never in my life kissed a young lady, and you are far too beautiful to me to want to get it wrong!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“All these things that crib and cab in your brain, in your imagination, are in fact things that might well in later life drive you insane.”

Diana Wynne Jones

“A garden should be natural-seeming, with wild sections, including a large area of bluebells.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“Then watch out. I warn you!"

"That is very considerate of you," said Chrestomanci. "I like to be warned.”

Diana Wynne Jones Charmed Life

Source: Charmed Life

“Alas, poor Yorick!" he said. "She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Not likely!” Howl yelled. “I’m a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell my self I’m not doing it!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“Pray use both cats as sponges if it pleases you, infatuated infantryman.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

“And you're too nice," he added, above the lap-lap of the water and the patter of sand on the water-lily leaves. "I was relying on you being too jealous to let that demon near the place.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“It was only when Shona, in sheer fury, turned the carnivorous sheep among them that they moved. They ran, some of them with charming little white sheep attached to their legs or backsides and the rest shouting about monsters.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Dark Lord of Derkholm

Source: Dark Lord of Derkholm

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