The point is not that I don't recognise bad people when I see them — I grant you I may quite well be taken in by them — the point is that I know a good person when I see one.

A clown needn't be the same out of the ring as he has to be when he's in it. If you look at photographs of clowns when they're just being ordinary men, they've got quite sad faces.

Mothers were much too sharp. They were like dogs. Buster always sensed when anything was out of the ordinary, and so did mothers. Mothers and dogs both had a kind of second sight that made them see into people's minds and know when anything unusual was going on.

If you can't look after something in your care, you have no right to keep it.

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

I don't believe in things like that - fairies or brownies or magic or anything. It's old-fashioned.' 'Well, we must be jolly old-fashioned then,' said Bessie. 'Because we not only believe in the Faraway Tree and love our funny friends there, but we go to see them too - and we visit the lands at the top of the Tree as well!

Remorse is a terrible thing to bear, Pam, one of the worst of all punishments in this life. To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness - that is a very terrible thing.

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

I do love the beginning of the summer hols,' said Julian. They always seem to stretch out ahead for ages and ages.' 'They go so nice and slowly at first,' said Anne, his little sister. 'Then they start to gallop.

Well, you know what grown-ups are,' said Dinah. 'They don't think the same way as we do. I expect when we grow up, we shall think like them - but let's hope we remember what it was like to think in the way children do, and understand the boys and the girls that are growing up when we're men and women.

Leave something for someone but dont leave someone for something.

When you're paid to do a job, it's better to give a few minutes more to it, than a few minutes less. That's one of the differences between doing a job honestly and doing it dishonestly! See?

My work in books, films and talks lies almost wholly with children, and I have very little time to give to grown-ups.

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'm good at exploring roofs. You never know when that kind of thing comes in useful.

I get over a hundred letters a day from all over the world, from children and parents, and it's a wonder I ever have time to write books, let alone speak!