Best Beatrix Potter Quotes & Sayings

I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman's life. — Beatrix Potter

I do so hate finishing books. I would like to go on with them for years. — Beatrix Potter

We believe 'Peter Rabbit' because Beatrix Potter believes it. You have to. — Nikki Giovanni

I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense. — Beatrix Potter

Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest. — Beatrix Potter

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were
Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. — Beatrix Potter

The second glimpse came through Squirrel Nutkin; through it only, though I loved all the Beatrix Potter books. But the rest of them were merely entertaining; it administered the shock, it was a trouble. It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and, as before, the experience was one of intense desire. And one went back to the book, not to gratify the desire (that was impossible - how can one possess Autumn?) but to reawake it. And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, "in another dimension." The — C.S. Lewis

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.
His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter!
'One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time.'
But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper. — Beatrix Potter

I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding — Beatrix Potter

My grandmother would give me a beautiful book each year. I especially loved the Beatrix Potter books. They were very detailed. And I promised myself that was what I'd do. I also loved the big words she used. I was excited because I knew what they meant from the context. I put a few big words in for just that reason. — Jan Brett

So much perfection argues rottenness somewhere. — Beatrix Potter

Meanwhile, as we read, two little girls slept as if couched on zephyrs on the south side of the parlor floor, in a room that had bunny wallpaper ... and a bookcase crammed with the collected Beatrix Potter. Snow White was in a youth bed and Rose Red was in a crib, and next to them was the little blue and white guest room that one of them would have one day. Because I recognize emotions only in retrospect, I didn't know that I was happy. As always, there was something nagging at my mind's corners. But I did know that I had all that it is proper in this world to wish for. — Mary Cantwell

Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some chamomile tea: One table-spoonful to be taken at bedtime. — Beatrix Potter

I am aware these little books don't last long even if they are a success. — Beatrix Potter

Sunday, January 27, 1884.
There was another story in the paper a week or so since. A gentleman had a favourite cat whom he taught to sit at the dinner table where it behaved very well. He was in the habit of putting any scraps he left onto the cat's plate. One day puss did not take his place punctually, but presently appeared with two mice, one of which it placed on its master's plate, the other on its own. — Beatrix Potter

The part of the Lake District that Beatrix Potter chose as her own was not only physically beautiful, it was a place in which she felt emotionally rooted as a descendant of hard-working north-country folk. The predictable routines of farm life appealed to her. There was a realism in the countryside that nurtured a deep connection. The scale of the villages was manageable. Yet the vast desolateness of the surrounding fells was awe-inspiring. It was mysterious, but easily imbued with fantasy and tamed by imagination. The sheltered lakes and fertile valleys satisfied her love of the pastoral. The hill farms and the sheep on the high fells demanded accountability. There was a longing in Beatrix Potter for association with permanence: to find a place where time moved slowly, where places remained much as she remembered them from season to season and from year to year. — Linda Lear

Don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor. — Beatrix Potter

And beyond the timeless meadows and emerald pastures, the rabbit holes and moss-covered oak and rowan trees and the "slippy sloppy" houses of frogs, the woodland-scented wind rushed between the leaves and blew around the gray veil that dipped below the fells, swirling up in a mist, blurring the edges of the distant forest.
(View from Windermere in the Lake District) — Susan Branch

Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work. — Beatrix Potter

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is 'soporific'. — Beatrix Potter

Then Mrs. Tiggy-winkle made tea - a cup for herself and a cup for Lucie. They sat before the fire on a bench and looked sideways at one another. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle's hand, holding the tea-cup, was very very brown, and very very wrinkly with the soap-suds; and all through her gown and her cap, there were HAIRPINS sticking wrong end out; so that Lucie didn't like to sit too near her. — Beatrix Potter

I think if she lived in A little shoe-house That little old woman was Surely a mouse! — Beatrix Potter

Thank goodness my education was neglected. — Beatrix Potter

I do not blench at nature red in tooth and claw... And much as I love The Wind in the Willows and the works of Beatrix Potter, I never dress my animals in clothes... They behave as animals should behave, with the exception that they open their mouths and speak the Queen's English. — Dick King-Smith

We cannot stay home all our lives, we must present ourselves to the world and we must look upon it as an adventure. — Beatrix Potter

I remember him reading 'Sleeping Beauty,' and he would play the score by Tchaikovsky as he read it. We'd also read 'Winnie the Pooh,' and, you know, those probably that he most often read me were 'Beatrix Potter' books, 'The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck' and 'The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.' I still have at least 15 of them. — Jennifer Grant

There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you. — Beatrix Potter

Here comes Peter Cottontail right down the bunny trail ... — Beatrix Potter

It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born. My brother and I were born in London ... but our descent, our interest and our joy were in the north country'.
Quoted in The Tale of Beatrix Potter a Biography by Margaret Lane, First Edition p 32-33 — Beatrix Potter

With opportunity the world is very interesting. — Beatrix Potter