Diana Wynne Jones: Quotes about thinking

Diana Wynne Jones was English children's fantasy writer. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
Diana Wynne Jones: 274 quotes2 likes

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

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“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

“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

“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

“"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.

“"This is a very old argument. The greatest happiness of the greatest number. If you think about it, you'll find it always works out that a few suffer for the good of the rest."
"In stories," Gair agreed hopelessly. "brave men die defending the rest. But this isn't like that!"
"Call it the modern version," Mr Claybury suggested kindly.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Power of Three

Source: Power of Three (1976), p. 201.

“"But she's too big!" the anguished man said, still glaring at Vivian. "This girl is not the right size!"
…
"She was six when she went away, Father," Jonathan said. He did not seem in the least alarmed. "That was nearly six years ago. Think how much I've changed since then."
"So you have," said this alarming man, turning his glare on Jonathan as if he did not think the change was for the better. "I see," he said. "She grew."”

Diana Wynne Jones book A Tale of Time City

Source: A Tale of Time City (1987), p. 45.

“"It looks as if you need only enter the field for long enough to recognise the bannus and take hold of it. Then you order it to stop."
"Fight my way through a mob of dancing girls and snatch the dulcimer off the leading damsel," Reigner Two said morbidly. "I can just see myself. I think the fools who invented this thing might have thought of a simpler way to stop it. What's wrong with a red switch?"”

Diana Wynne Jones book Hexwood

Source: Hexwood (1993), p. 138.

“Dear Polly,
Tom wishes you, for some reason I can't understand, to consider the human back. He says there are many other matters you should consider too, but that was a particularly glaring example. He invites you, he says, to walk along a beach this summer and watch the male citizens there sunning themselves. There you will see backs - backs stringy, backs bulging, and backs with ingrained dirt. You will find, he says, yellow skin, blackheads, pimples, enlarged pores and tufts of hair.
This is making me ill, but Tom says go on. Peeling sunburn, warts, boils, moles and midge bites and floppy rolls of skin. Even a back without these blemishes, he claims, seldom or never ripples, unless with gooseflesh. In fact, he defies you to find an inch of silk or a single powerful muscle in any hundred yards of average sunbathers. I hope you know what all this is about, because I don't. I think you should stay away from the seaside if you can.
Yours ever, Sam.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock (1985), p. 265.

“I have been with the Court all my life, travelling with the King's Progress.
I didn't know how to go on. I sat and stared at this sentence, until Grundo said, "If you can't do it, I will."
If you didn't know Grundo, you'd think this was a generous offer, but it was a threat really. Grundo is dyslexic. Unless he thinks hard, he writes inside out and backwards. He was threatening me with half a page of crooked writing with words like "inside" turning up as "sindie" and "story" as "otsyr".”

Diana Wynne Jones

Source: Magids Series, The Merlin Conspiracy (2003), p. 7.
First lines of the novel.

“"Look here," Gerald said, "what do you think of Giants?"
There was the kind of pause that happens when people do not like to say what they really think.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Power of Three

Source: Power of Three (1976), p. 166.

“I had a mitherable childhood. Nobody loved me. I think I have a right to try again, looking pwettier, don't you?”

Diana Wynne Jones

Source: Castle Series, House of Many Ways (2008), p. 306.

“I was a thoroughly hardened Homeward Bounder. There seemed nothing I didn't know.
Then I ran into Helen. My friendly neighbourhood enemy. There really was nothing like Helen on any world I'd ever been to. I sometimes didn't think she was human at all.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Homeward Bounders

Source: The Homeward Bounders (1981), p. 70.

“"Can I eat these?" he said.
"No," said Vivian. "I'm hungry."
"I'll give you half," Sam said, plainly thinking he was being generous.”

Diana Wynne Jones book A Tale of Time City

Source: A Tale of Time City (1987), p. 21.