Famous Quotes & Sayings

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 22 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Jill Paton Walsh.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Pinterest Share on Linkedin

Famous Quotes By Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 849405

Clever readers, of course, would already have seen through the entire thing, and for them the ending would lack surprise. But Harriet knew from experience that the pleasures of having guessed it all, with the concomitant pleasure of feeling clever, would make up for that as long as matters were not humiliatingly easy to guess. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 124021

I honestly don't think Peter is that interesting without Harriet - the only exception being 'The Nine Tailors', which is such a good book it doesn't really matter whether he's got a consort or not. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 127129

Bunter came with me in the role of a friend. A role he has always played to perfection."
"It does not require dissimulation, my lord," said Bunter.
"Thank you," said Peter. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1063735

It's the Queen's English now,' observed Peter mildly.

'Is there a difference?' asked Oundle rhetorically. 'I fervently hope not.'

'There will be in time,' said Peter.

'That will be deplorable,' replied Oudle. 'I shall not myself deviate by a syllable from correct usage.'

'My language is foul, and yours is Fowler?' said Peter, and added one of his sudden quirky smiles, 'or know your Onions.'

This quip crossed the barrier of the table, because the man sitting nearly opposite Peter laughed.

'Onions?' said Oudle.

'C.T. Onions, I imagine,' said the man opposite. 'Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.'

'Oh, I see,' said Oudle. 'Very droll. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 2248094

If you want to express yourself, you need the services of a lover or a psychiatrist; if you want to express a book, you might conceivably manage it. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1235902

Harriet said, "You shouldn't have reminded me to sign that book, Peter."
"Why ever not? Have you suddenly become bashful about your hard-earned glories?"
"Because it watn's hers," said Harriet. "It was a library copy."
"Stroke of luck for the ratepaers of the City of Westminster," he said, grinning. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 128798

There's no point in using someone else's characters if you're going to turn them into your own vision. You have to be loyal to that person's worldview and sensitive to what they would and wouldn't have done with their characters, and how explicit or inexplicit they would've been. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 2236721

[A]fter all, the position of a reader in a book is very like that occupied by angels in the world, when angels still had any credibility. Yours is, like theirs, a hovering, gravely attentive presence, observing everything, from whom nothing is concealed, for angels are very bright mirrors. Hearts and minds are as open as the landscape to their view, as to yours; like them you are in the fabled world invisible. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 2192922

I worked for many years as a writer for children and then wrote two adult novels of the kind they call 'literary' without any very great disturbance to this kind of life. Then, something went wrong. My third adult novel was rejected by the publisher of the first two. And I could not understand the criticism offered. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1945336

The protagonist of folktale is always, and intensely, a young person moving through ordeals into adult life ... and this is why there are no wicked stepchildren in the tales. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1857790

It's amazing [ ... ] how perfectly honest people who would starve rather than steal sixpence, will steal books without compunction. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1773835

It is only grown-ups who want children to be children; children themselves always want to be real people ... — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1525896

Being a writer usually entails a fairly quiet life. However much travel one might do, however many tours and appearances, the job entails solitude: long hours in libraries, long hours at a desk. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1283151

In the beginning the word was with God; all explanations, physical and moral, rested on the divine. And now for storytellers, even though those patterns of explanation are strictly human, the word has not lost a superhuman power to connect young and old, writer and reader; to connect us with each other and with the causes and consequences of what we do. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 811195

I think that novels are tools of thought. They are moral philosophy with the theory left out, with just the examples of the moral situations left standing. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1229583

My grandfather had a proper bookcase of egghead books, and he gave them to me in alphabetical order. So we moved from Aeschylus to the Brontas, and I can still remember the great relief of going from the dipus cycle to Jane Eyre. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1192809

You can't deduce the personality of the potter from the pots. It's a thingy you've made and offered to somebody else for their use, and, believe me, a novel is like that. It's a made thing and ought not to contain a direct self-expression of the writer. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1104462

If you tell someone a secret, and ask them to keep it secret, you are asking them to display a discretion you are unable to display yourself. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 1097492

Granted, a man may smile and smile and be a villain, but it takes nerve. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 197525

And may God better understand and love us, than we, in our weakness, can do him. — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 921997

Meanwhile, we stooped and picked the sharp plants, — Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh Quotes 590195

One of my colleagues in Birmingham University, where I come from,' said Trevair, 'is a moral philosopher. He taught me that one of the ways to judge a course of action is to consider what company it puts one in. I doubt if that's very good philosophy, but I find it a good rule of thumb. — Jill Paton Walsh