Edith Nesbit Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

Then suddenly Jack was a changed boy. Something wonderful had happened to him, and it had made him different. It sometimes happened to people that they see or hear something quite wonderful and then they are never altogether the same again.

Edith Nesbit
It is curious that nearly all the great fortunes are made by turning beautiful things into ugly ones. Making beauty out of ugliness is very ill-paid work.

Edith Nesbit
One of the uses of poetry - one says it to oneself in distressing circumstances,... or when one has to wait at railway stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at night.

Edith Nesbit
It is not, Dear, because I am alone, For I am lonelier when the rest are near, But that my place against your heart has grown Too dear to dream of when you are not here.

Edith Nesbit
The ones as big as sheep were easier to avoid, because you could see them coming, but when they flew in at the window and curled up under your eiderdown, and you did not find them till you went to bed, it was always a shock. The ones this size did not eat people, only lettuces, but they always scorched the sheets and pillowcases dreadfully.

Edith Nesbit
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.

Edith Nesbit
Also she had the power of silent sympathy. That sounds rather dull, I know, but it's not so dull as it sounds. It just means that a person is able to know that you are unhappy, and to love you extra on that account, without bothering you by telling you all the time how sorry she is for you.

Edith Nesbit
There are brown eyes in the world, after all, as well as blue, and one pair of brown that meant heaven to me as the blue had never done

Edith Nesbit
I ought to have put this in the preface, but I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.

Edith Nesbit
There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs forever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real.

Edith Nesbit
The affection you get back from children is sixpence given as change for a sovereign.

Edith Nesbit
Everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep on.

Edith Nesbit
Albert-next-door doesn't care for reading, and he has not read nearly so many books as we have, so he is very foolish and ignorant, but it cannot be helped... Besides, it is wrong to be angry with people for not being so clever as you are yourself.

Edith Nesbit
The chestnut's proud, and the lilac's pretty, The poplar's gentle and tall, But the plane tree's kind to the poor dull city - I love him best of all.

Edith Nesbit
There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read - unless it be reading while you eat. Amabel did both: they are not the same thing, as you will see if you think the matter over.

Edith Nesbit
I think everyone in the world is friends if you can only get them to see you don't want to be un-friends.

Edith Nesbit
When you are young so many things are difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people will tell you that they are true—such things, for instance, as that the earth goes round the sun, and that it is not flat but round. But the things that seem really likely, like fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy to believe, especially when you see them happening.

Edith Nesbit
It is all very wonderful and mysterious, as all life is apt to be if you go a little below the crust, and are not content just to read newspapers and go by the Tube Railway, and buy your clothes ready-made, and think nothing can be true unless it is uninteresting.

Edith Nesbit
It is a curious thing that people only ask if you are enjoying yourself when you aren't.

Edith Nesbit