Frances Hodgson Burnett Quotes & Sayings

There were in this strange nature, depths so awful and profound that it was not to be sounded or to be judged as others were. But one thing could have melted or caused the unconquerable spirit to bend, and this was the overwhelming passion of love
not a slight, tender feeling, but a great and powerful one, such as could be awakened but by a being of as strong and deep a nature as itself, one who was in all things its peer. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Thoughts - just mere thoughts - are as powerful as electric batteries - as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

What does it say?" asked my lord.
"It says, 'Good-night, God keep you all the night!'--just what she used to say when we were together. Every night she used to say that to me, and every morning she said, 'God bless you all the day!' So you see I am quite safe all the time---- — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She had been a smart, lovely, laughing and lovable thing, full of pleasure in the world, and now she was so stricken and devastated that she seemed set apart in an awful lonely world of her own. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with their doors locked - a house on the edge of a moor - whatsoever a moor was - sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in gray — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see gardening begun on his own estate. He had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creature who was not half Ben's size and yet had had the sense to come into his garden and begin at once. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

It was a mere matter of seeing common things together and exchanging common speech concerning them, but each was so strongly conscious of the other that no sentence could seem wholly impersonal. There are times when the whole world is personal to a mood whose intensity seems a reason for all things. Words are of small moment when the mere sound of a voice makes an unreasonable joy. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Two lads an' a little lass just lookin' on at th' springtime. I warrant it'd be better than doctor's stuff. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

He's been spoiled 'til salt won't save him. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?" ...
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine ... — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of the big ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children playing about on the hot deck, and of some young officers' wives who used to try to make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I am almost ashamed to answer,' she said. 'As I have said before, Emily
Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without
her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a
dinner-party without fish to-night.'
'She has _walked_ over to Maundell,' said Lord Walderhurst
'after
yesterday?'
'There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable,' answered Lady
Maria. 'It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and
she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she
ought to be given the Victoria Cross for
saving one from a dinner-party
without fish.'
The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the
glass rigidly in his eye.
'It is not only four miles to Maundell,' he remarked, staring at the
table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, 'but it is four miles back. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be kind and true always, and then you will never hurt any one, so long as you live, and you may help many, and the big world may be better because my little child was born. And that is best of all, Ceddie, - it is better than everything else, that the world should be a little better because a man has lived - even ever so little better, dearest. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Really. But such a nice thing has happened. I have had such a delightful invitation for the first week in August." "I'm sure you'll enjoy it, miss," said Jane. "It's so hot in August. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

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. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

A person who was clever ought to be clever enough not to be unjust or deliberately unkind to anyone. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

alcoves, and once or twice he sat down — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Fair fresh leaves, and buds - and buds - tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if they're rich and important. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

When a man looks at the stars, he grows calm and forgets small things. They answer his questions and show him that his earth is only one of the million worlds. Hold your soul still and look upward often, and you will understand their speech. Never forget the stars. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

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. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any other century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing 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. One of these things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts- just mere thoughts- are as powerful as electric batteries- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. 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.
The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett
1911 — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Them as is not wanted scarce ever thrives. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

As the plans of march made by great generals in — Frances Hodgson Burnett

So taking it, she stood among the dried, withered things and looked in tender regret at them. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way - or always to have it. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Her affection for everything she could love increased. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

So long as I know what's expected of me, I can manage. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I won't have dull people, she used to say, I'm dull myself. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

That's what I look at some people for. I like to know about them. I think them over afterward. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Children's as good as 'rithmetic to set you findin' out things. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Innocent little villages full of homes torn and trampled under foot and burned!" the Duchess almost cried out. "And worse things than that - worse things! — Frances Hodgson Burnett

It's a lonely place. Sometimes it's the loneliest place in the world. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

All women are princesses , it is our right. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Into a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked only — Frances Hodgson Burnett

However many years she lived, Mary always felt that 'she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow'. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

to speak to her. He was interested in his roses (which, she heard afterward, were to be sent to town to an invalid friend), — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She IS too fat," said Lavinia. "And Sara is too thin. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The tea was so delicious that it was not necessary to pretend it was anything but tea. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She made herself stronger by fighting with the wind. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Soldiers don't complain ... I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a war. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The air was full of spices... A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place. The few books she had read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret gardens in some of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them for a hundred years, which she had thought must be rather stupid. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

in a still, delicious room, with the summer morning sunshine — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The afternoon was dragging towards its mellow hour. The sun was deepening the gold of its lances, the bees were going home and the birds were flying past less often. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Nothing, and Mr. Havisham kept her from suspecting — Frances Hodgson Burnett

He knew nothing of earls and castles; he was quite ignorant of all grand and splendid things; but he was always lovable because he was simple and loving. To be so is like being born a king. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

and there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with the sun pouring down on her and warm sweet wafts about her and the fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree. She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself — Frances Hodgson Burnett

It was a long corridor and it branched into other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others again. There — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Perhaps you can feel if you can't hear," was her fancy. "Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don't know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

And they both began to laugh over nothing as children will when they are happy together. And they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year-old creatures - instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he was going to die. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

you are going to be sent home....
I 'm glad of it
but where's HOME ? — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Tis a barbaric fancy," said Roxholm thoughtfully as he turned the stem of his glass, keeping his eyes fixed on it as though solving a problem for himself. "A barbaric fancy that a woman needs a master. She who is strong enough is her own conqueror
as a man should be master of himself. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I wish you had a 'little missus' who could pet you as I used to pet papa when he had a headache. I should like to be your 'little missus' myself, poor dear! Good night-good night. God bless you! — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a child is never have his own way-- or always to have it. She doesn't know which is th' worst. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Nothing is more interesting than repressed emotion. The appearance of sardonic coldness and stoicism which has deceived you is but a hollow mockery; beneath it I secrete a maelstrom of impassioned feeling and a mausoleum of blighted hopes. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Whole monstrosity growing more huge and throwing out new and more awful tentacles every day. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I do not know whether many people realize how much more than is ever written there really is in a story - how many parts of it are never told - how much more really happened than there is in the book one holds in one's hand and pores over. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The paths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger — Frances Hodgson Burnett

If you fill your mind with a beautiful thought, there will be no room in it for an ugly one. - King Amor — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books - great, big, fat ones - French and German as well as English - history and biography and poets, and all sorts of things. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like. How they crouched by the fire which blazed and leaped and made much of itself in the little grate. How they removed the covers of the dishes, and found rich, hot savory soup, which was a meal in itself, and sandwiches and toast and muffins enough for both of them. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She had never been taught to ask permission to do things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would not have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk about the house, even if she had seen her. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

And a man who is six feet three in height has six feet and three inches of evil to do battle with, if he has not six feet three of strength and honesty to fight for him. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

A large house left deserted by those who have filled its rooms with emotions and life, expresses a silence, a quality all its own. A house unfurnished and empty seems less impressively silent. The fact of its devoidness of sound is upon the whole more natural. But carpets accustomed to the pressure of constantly passing feet, chairs and sofas which have held human warmth, draperies used to the touch of hands drawing them aside to let in daylight, pictures which have smiled back at thinking eyes, mirrors which have reflected faces passing hourly in changing moods, elate or dark or longing, walls which have echoed back voices - all these things when left alone seem to be held in strange arrest, as if by some spell intensifying the effect of the pause in their existence. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Sara saw that privately she could not help hoping very much that they would all be black, and would wear turbans, — Frances Hodgson Burnett

They're a pair of young Satans. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

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. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I'm growing fatter," said Mary, — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon," said Colin. "It makes her think of ways to do things - nice things. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Tom's Cabin, and she spent many hours acting out — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Between the lines of every story there is another story, and that is one that is never heard and can only be guessed at by the people who are good at guessing. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Victorian and touchingly respectable. "I have been crying," confessed Lady Agatha. "I was afraid so, Lady Agatha," said Emily. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

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 — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

How does thee like thyself? — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walked the world over to get her a blade o' grass she wanted. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Was looked at askance, and that in the bearing of each member of the group there was a defiance of the general opinion. Roxholm sat on his horse somewhat apart from this group watching it, his kinsman and — Frances Hodgson Burnett

The youngest youngster vibrates with the shock of cannon firing, even though the sound may not be near enough to be heard," answered Coombe. "We're all vibrating unconsciously. We are shuddering consciously at the things we hear and are mad to put a stop to, before they go further. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

And the roses - the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades - they came alive day by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and buds - and buds - tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air. Colin — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady," he had gone on rather hesitatingly. "An' mother she thinks maybe she's about Misselthwaite many a time lookin' after Mester Colin, same as all mothers do when they're took out o' th' world. They have to come back, tha' sees. Happen she's been in the garden an' happen it was her set us to work, an' told us to bring him here." Mary — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I am growing quite fond of him," she said to Ermengarde; "I should not like him to be disturbed. I have adopted him for a friend. You can do that with people you never speak to at all. You can just watch them, and think about them and be sorry for them, until they seem almost like relations. I'm quite anxious sometimes when I see the doctor call twice a day. — Frances Hodgson Burnett