There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.
With opportunity the world is very interesting.
I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.
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.
The shorter and the plainer the better.
Don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.
Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.
This is a fierce bad rabbit; look at his savage whiskers, and his claws and his turned-up tail.
Thank God I have the seeing eye, that is to say, as I lie in bed I can walk step by step on the fells and rough land seeing every stone and flower and patch of bog and cotton pass where my old legs will never take me again.
In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets – when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta – there lived a tailor in Gloucester.
What we call the highest and the lowest in nature are both equally perfect. A willow bush is as beautiful as the human form divine.
I think if she lived in A little shoe-house That little old woman was Surely a mouse!
It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born.
I think prejudice and tradition count for three-quarters in matters of religion.
Peter lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.
Once upon a time there were three kittens, and their names were Mitten, Tom Kitten, and Moppet. They had dear little fur coats of their own; and they tumbled about the doorstep and played in the dust.
Here comes Peter Cottontail right down the bunny trail...
So much perfection argues rottenness somewhere.
I have just made stories to please myself, because I never grew up.
I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding.
I am worn to a raveling.