Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name. Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least.
Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 14
“He did his best to interest the girl in himself—that is to say, his work—and she, after the manner of women, did her best to appear interested in, what behind his back, she called "Mr. Wressley's Wajahs"; for she lisped very prettily. She did not understand one little thing about them, but she acted as if she did. Men have married on that sort of error before now.”
Wressley of the Foreign Office.
Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
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Rudyard Kipling 200
English short-story writer, poet, and novelist 1865–1936Related quotes
Source: Waking Hours: Book 1 in East Salem Trilogy with Pete Nelson (Thomas Nelson), p. 16
“A pity she did not understand them!”
"Odd Man Out", BBC TV profile by Michael Cockerell transmitted on 11 November 1995, on Margaret Thatcher's adoption of monetarist economic policies.
1990s