“When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen.”

—  P.G. Wodehouse

Indicating with a reserved gesture that this was just the sort of loony thing I should have expected her to think as a child, I returned to the point.
Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 10, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I sh…" by P.G. Wodehouse?
P.G. Wodehouse photo
P.G. Wodehouse302
English author 1881–1975

Related quotes

P.G. Wodehouse photo

“When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen.". Indicating with a reserved gesture that this was just the sort of loony thing I should have expected her to think as a child, I returned to the point.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

P.G. Wodehouse photo

“I remember her telling me once that rabbits were the gnomes in attendance to the Fairy Queen and that the stars were God's daisy chain. Perfect rot, of course.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Charles Bukowski photo

“as a child
i suppose
i was not quite
normal.


my happiest times were
when
i was left alone in
the house on a
saturday.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us…”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2

Conor Oberst photo

“So you think I need some discipline, well, I had my share. I have been sent to my room. I've been sat in a chair. I held my tongue. I didn't plug my ears. No, I got a good talking to. And now I don't know why, but I still try to smile when they talk at me like I'm just a child. Well, I'm not a child. No, I am much younger than that. And now I have read some books and have grown quite brave. If only I could just speak up I think I would say that there is no truth. There is only you and what you make the truth.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Don't Know When But A Day is Gonna Come
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

From article "In Defense of Curiosity" appearing in The Saturday Evening Post 208 (August 24, 1935); 8-9, 64-66. As cited in What I Hope to Leave Behind, The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt Edited by Alida M. Black, p 20.
As quoted in Todays Health (October 1966)

Cyrano de Bergerac photo

“The town was abuzz with talk of the King's animals.
We were fed regularly, and the King and Queen quite often enjoyed feeling my abdomen to see if I weren't pregnant; they were extraordinarily eager to have a whole family of little animals like us.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

“Your hair shines like gold, says my child.
You are pretty old, says my child.
And I think to myself how I used to be.
There's another wrinkle that I see.
Then he takes my hand and smiles at me.”

Amber (1970) Dutch born German singer, songwriter, label owner and executive producer

"The Smile of My Child", Naked (2002).

Marty Feldman photo

“I was about five and a half or six when I converted [to vegetarianism] … I was brought up the first five years of my life in London, in the working-class part of the city, where the only animals that a child is liable to see are domestic animals, or cats, or pigeons, or horses, none of which one eats. Then I was evacuated onto a farm when the war came, and billeted with this family of farmers, and I got very friendly with a rabbit—George, the rabbit. Then one day, George the rabbit was George the lunch. For a farming family there was nothing obscene about that. They kill animals; they serve them up at table and say, "Hey, yes, that's the animal you were playing with yesterday!"—which is not abnormal. It was obscene to me as a child.”

Marty Feldman (1934–1982) British actor and comedian

Interview in The Vegetarians by Rynn Berry (Brookline, MA: Autumn Press, 1979), p. 30.

Billy Joe Shaver photo

“I think maybe I was born to be a songwriter. It's quite a comfort. I wrote most of my songs to stay alive, the rest to get back in the house.”

Billy Joe Shaver (1939) American singer-songwriter

Billy Joe Shaver talks Waylon, women, more (2014)

Related topics