Frances Hodgson Burnett Quotes

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

“She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of and what you do.”

“People never like me and I never like people”

“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”

“I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend.”

“That's what I look at some people for. I like to know about them. I think them over afterward.”

“Things happen to people by accident.”

“Perhaps you can feel if you can't hear. Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted.”

“Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people… Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.”

“If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago, her father used to say, 'she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble.”

“Never thee stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of it - and call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when I come into t' garden.”

“Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off and they are nearly always doing it.”

“Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it.”

“She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself.”

“And this, my lovely child, is your garden.”

“Everything's a story - You are a story -I am a story.”

“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.”

“It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.”

“Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”

“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that 'she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow'.”

“I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us”

“Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way - or always to have it.”

“Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worse thing never quite comes.”

“Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.”

“What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else.”

“To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in, you may never get over it as long as you live.”

“There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em.”

“I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one.”

“Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?”

“I don't like it, papa," she said. "But then I dare say soldiers - even brave ones - don't reallygoing into battle.”

“Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?" he said, stroking her hair.
"No," she answered. "I know you by heart. You are inside my heart.”

“But I suppose there might be good in things, even if we don't see it.”

“My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if they're rich and important.”

“To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman”

“As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive.”

“So long as I know what's expected of me, I can manage.”

“All women are princesses, it is our right.”

“Oh, how she did love that queer, common boy!”

“Yes," answered Sara, nodding. "Adversity tries people, and mine has tried you and proved how nice you are.”

“You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you're too curious.”

“Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book.”

“It's so easy that when you begin you can't stop. You just go on and on doing it always.”

“It's true," she said. "Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one.”

“She looked into the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of sobbing- Sara who never cried.”

“If nature has made you a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart. And though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that.”

“I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.”

“Soldiers don't complain… I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a war.”

“You and me are a good bit alike. We're neither of us good lookin', and we're both as sour as we look.”

“You can't marry this Archibald. He's a gloomy, miserable cripple that hides himself away in that horrible house. You've said it yourself, you can't believe you love him and neither can I!”

“Yorkshire’s th’ sunniest place on earth when it is sunny.”