The best thing for being sad, is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails ... Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.

It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible.

He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.

Jenny, all my life I have wanted to do miracles. I have wanted to be holy. I suppose it was ambition or pride or some other unworthy thing. It was not enough for me to conquer the world--I wanted to conquer heaven too.

Were they, for some purpose almost too cunning for belief, only disguised as themselves?

You run a grave risk, my boy," said the magician, "of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted.

We cannot build the future by avenging the past.