“Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly”

—  Mary Howitt, book The Spider and the Fly

Source: The Spider and the Fly

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly" by Mary Howitt?
Mary Howitt photo
Mary Howitt6
English poet, and author 1799–1888

Related quotes

Alexander Mackenzie photo

“Walk into my parlour said the spider to the fly”

Alexander Mackenzie (1822–1892) 2nd Prime Minister of Canada

August 1872 debate Sarnia - to Macdonald in declining Macdonald’s offer for Mackenzie to join the Coalition Cabinet in 1865 upon George Brown’s resignation in protest - Buckingham page 324

Mary Howitt photo

“"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly;
"'T is the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy."”

Mary Howitt book The Spider and the Fly

The Spider and the Fly, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Not fault of teaching spider if little spider pay more attention to catching fly than doing lesson.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Queen of the Darkness

“The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly. The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield.”

Garrett Fort (1900–1945) screenwriter

Dracula, speaking to Harker at his castle
Dracula (1931)

“I'm delirious," said Howl. "Spots are crawling before my eyes."
"Those are spiders," said Sophie. "Why can't you cure yourself with a spell?"
"Because there is no cure for a cold," Howl said dolefully.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Bill Bailey photo

“Even if you’re not particularly religious, then you have to admit that religion surrounds us even in the most mundane aspects of our lives. I was trying to rent a car, and the bloke said to me: "You’re not covered for acts of God."
I said: "What do you mean by that?", he said: [waving arms] "Woooooh!"
I said, "Can you be a bit more specific?", and he went, [vaguely gesticulating] "Eh… ooooh… uh?"
I said, "I’m intrigued because you said 'acts of God', and not gods, or spirits, or jinn, or nymphs, but 'God', a capital God, a monotheistic religion, maybe a Judeo-Christian religion, which would imply a belief system, which would perhaps lead to free-will and determinism, so logically anything that man does directly or indirectly is in fact an act of God, so I’m not covered for anything!"
He said, "I’ll get the manager."
Then I said, "What do you mean by an act of God? What do you mean by that?"
He said, "I dunno, a plague of locusts or something."
"'A plague of locusts'? They swarm round the vehicle, rip the wing mirrors off, and I’m liable for a fifty pound excess?”
And he said, "No, like, rain or something."
I said, "Yeah, but how much rain? It’s drizzling a bit now, is that an act of God? At what point does the rain reach a certain level beyond which it takes on the more apocalyptic mantle of the water-based punishment of the Lord!?"
And he said, [despairing] "I just work Saturdays."
I said "You can’t answer me, can you? Your policy is riddled with theological inconsistency. You disgust me. You twist and turn. You remind me of the Siberian hunting spider, which adopts a highly-convincing limp in three of its eight legs in order to attract its main prey, the so-called Samaritan squirrel, which takes pity on the spider, and then the spider jumps on it and injects the paralysing venom, and the squirrel remains bafflingly philosophical about the whole thing. Not to be confused with the Ukrainian hunting spider, which actually has got a limp and is, as such, completely harmless, and a little bit bitter about the whole thing: [imitating spider] 'Siberian spider have good leg, have nice day, can catch fly, can make web, can catch fly for family, I can do nothing, my leg, it drags behind! It drags! [audience laughs] And you laugh! You make fun! Oh, ha, big joke! I am failure! I am freak! [singing] But in my dreams I can fly, I'm the greatest spider in town. But I wake and it's cold, and I feel so old, and my legs are dragging me down.'"
And then the manager came out, and he said: “Stop all that spider singing."”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Pointed to a sign on the wall: a spider with a line through it. "Oh, fair enough."
He said "I can offer you an upgrade, fifty quid, and we can include in it policies set in place by the Marquis de Laplace, the French scientist who declared that all things in the universe are predetermined, so you would be covered even if time-travel was invented during the period of rental.”
I said, "Nah, probably leave it."
Part Troll (2004)

Galway Kinnell photo

“Prose is walking; poetry is flying”

Galway Kinnell (1927–2014) Poet

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“We must keep moving. If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

&quot;Keep Moving from this Mountain&quot; http://www5.spelman.edu/about_us/news/pdf/70622_messenger.pdf – Founders Day Address at the Sisters Chapel, Spelman College (11 April 1960) <br class="br">1960s

Related topics