Diana Wynne Jones Quotes

Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of danger. It had to be a hoax.

That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.

But most dragons seem to have interesting personalities--besides probably having quite good reasons for what they do, if only one could understand them

Busy old fool, unruly Sophie

It's just as I thought," she said. "I prefer you to every single one of these. Some of these look far too proud of themselves, and some look selfish and cruel. You are unassuming and kind. I intend to ask my father to marry me to you, instead of to the Prince in Ochinstan. Would you mind?

Wizard Howl," said Wizard Suliman. "I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn't dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.

He picked up the skull and knocked an onion ring out of its eye socket. "I see Sophie has been busy again. Couldn't you have restrained her, my friend?" The skull yattered its teeth at him. Howl put it down rather hastily.

Mr. Crossley suddenly wondered why he was why he was worrying about the note. It was only a joke, after all. He cleared his throat. Everyone looked up hopefully. 'Somebody,' said Mr. Crossley, 'seems to have sent me a Halloween message.' And he read out the note: 'SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH.' 6B thought this was splendid news. Hands shot up all over the room like a bed of beansprouts. 'It's me, Mr. Crossley!' 'Mr. Crossley, I'm the witch!' 'Can I be the witch, Mr. Crossley?' 'Me, Mr. Crossley, me, me, me!

Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all.

Christopher discovered that you dealt with obnoxious masters and most older boys the way you dealt with governesses: you quite politely told them the truth in the way they wanted to hear it, so that they thought they had won and left you in peace.

Do you mind not being so kind and obedient? It makes me nervous.

Howl’s voice was presently heard shouting weakly, “Help me, someone! I’m dying from neglect up here!

Calcifer," Sophie said, "I shall have to break your contract. Will it kill you?" "It would if anyone else broke it," Calcifer said hoarsely. "That's why I asked you to do it.

I'm going up to my room now, where I may die.

Tell me about this Wizard Howl of yours." "He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything." "Indeed? Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies." "What do you mean, vices? I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he's dead!

After that, he tried to go upstairs through the broom cupboard, and then the yard. This seemed to puzzle him a little. But finally he discovered the stairs, all except the bottom on, and fell up them on his face. The whole castle shook.

If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.

I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.

My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.

I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.

A heart's a heavy burden.

Chrestomanci smiled and swept out of the room like a very long procession of one person.

Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet. "I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.

By this time, half the people in High Norland were gathered in Royal Square to stare at the castle. They all watched with disbelief as the castle rose slightly into the air and glided toward the road that led southward. It was hardly more than an alley, really. "It'll never fit!" people said. But the castle somehow squeezed itself narrow enough to drift away along it and out of sight. The citizens of High Norland gave it a cheer as it went.

Annoyed?” said Sophie. “Why should I be annoyed? Someone only filled the castle with rotten aspic, and deafened everyone in Porthaven, and scared Calcifer to a cinder, and broke a few hundred hearts. Why should that annoy me?

To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.

Look. Survey. Inspect. My hair is ruined! I look like a pan of bacon and eggs!

I think we ought to live happily ever after.

I've got a hangover." "No, you hit your head on the floor." "I can't stay. I've got to rescue that fool Sophie.

So you were going to rescue the Prince! Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?" "Not likely! I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it!

The truth between two people always cuts two ways.

Mr. Stock came out of the competition tent carrying his zeppelin marrow on one shoulder and demanding to know what was going on. When he saw the hordes advancing on Aidan, he charged off that way, whirling the great vegetable. The Puck, who was rushing behind the horde, yelling at them to grab Aidan and kill Rolf, was Mr. Stock's first victim. The marrow caught him THOCK! on the side of the head. It laid the Puck out cold on the grass, but the mighty vegetable remained intact, mottled and glossy

Goats," said Maxwell Hyde, "are a special case. Mad as hatters, all of them.

It is quite a risk to spank a wizard for getting hysterical about his hair.

Nothing is safe from you. If I were to court a girl who lived on an iceberg in the middle of the ocean, sooner or later— probably sooner— I’d look up to see you swooping overhead on a broomstick. In fact, by now I’d be disappointed in you if I didn’t see you.” “Are you off to the iceberg today?” Sophie retorted.

Then there you are, then. The day Howl forgets to do that will be the day I believe he's really in love, and not before." Michael to Sophie about wether or not Howl is really in love with Lettie. pg, 170

Things are going round and round in my head--or maybe my head is going round and round in things.

Can't you just keep your big mouth shut?" Brian said furiously to Nan. He pointed to Chrestomanci. "How do we know he's safe? For all we know, he could be the devil that you summoned up!" "Oh, you flatter me, Brian," Chrestomanci said.

Take it from me, Fate doesn't care most of the time.

Alas, poor Yorick!" he said. "She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.

By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. "I'll make some hot buttered toast," she said. "Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy??" Howl asked. "Make toast!

All she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to 'jutht TRY it.

There were horrendous, dramatic, violent quantities of green slime—oodles of it. It covered Howl completely. It draped his head and shoulders in sticky dollops, heaping on his knees and hands, trickling in glops down his legs, and dripping off the stool in sticky strands. It was in oozing ponds and crawling pools over most of the floor. Long fingers of it had crept into the hearth. It smelled vile.

And you're too nice," he added, above the lap-lap of the water and the patter of sand on the water-lily leaves. "I was relying on you being too jealous to let that demon near the place.

As often happened, Charmain began to despair of getting her mother to understand. She's not stupid, she just never lets her mind out, she thought.

Mother Very Easily Made Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest

In addition, Master Twinkle seems convinced that someone is denying him a pair of stripey trousers.

This book will prove the following ten facts: 1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there. 2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch. 3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity. 4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight. 5. Music does not always sooth the troubled beast. 6. An Englishman's home is his castle. 7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male. 8. One black eye deserves another. 9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm. 10. It pays to increase your word power.