You're trying to escape from your difficulties, and there never is any escape from difficulties, never. They have to be faced and fought.

I wonder where you got that idea from? I mean, the idea that it's feeble to change your mind once it's made up. That's a wrong idea, you know. Make up your mind about things, by all means - but if something happens to show that you are wrong, then it is feeble not to change your mind, Elizabeth. Only the strongest people have the pluck to change their minds, and say so, if they see they have been wrong in their ideas.

It wasn't a bit of good fighting grown-ups. They could do exactly as they liked.

I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.

They lay on their heathery beds and listened to all the sounds of the night. They heard the little grunt of a hedgehog going by. They saw the flicker of bats overhead. They smelt the drifting scent of honeysuckle, and the delicious smell of wild thyme crushed under their bodies. A reed-warbler sang a beautiful little song in the reeds below, and then another answered.

I am not really much interested in talking to adults, although I suppose practically every mother in the kingdom knows my name and my books. It's their children I love.

Writing for children is an art in itself, and a most interesting one.