Sylvester Duncan Quotes

″ ‘What a lucky day this is!’ thought Sylvester. ‘From now on I can have everything I want. My father and mother can have anything they want. My relatives, my friends, and anybody at all can have everything anybody wants!’ ”

“Night followed day and day followed night over and over again. Sylvester on the hill woke up less and less often. When he was awake, he was only hopeless and unhappy.”

“One day in May, Mr. Duncan insisted that his wife go with him on a picnic. ‘Let’s cheer up,’ he said. ‘Let us try to live again and be happy even though Sylvester, our angel, is no longer with us.’ ”

“They tried their best to be happy, to go about their usual ways. But their usual ways included Sylvester and they were always reminded of him. They were miserable. Life had no meaning for them any more.”

“He was frightened. If he hadn’t been so frightened, he could have made the lion disappear, or he could have wished himself at home with his father and mother. He could have wished the lion would turn into a butterfly or daisy or a gnat. He could have wished many things, but he panicked and couldn’t think carefully. ‘I wish I were a rock,’ he said, and he became a rock.”

“But he couldn’t talk. He had no voice. He was stone-dumb.”

“Mrs. Duncan sat down on the rock. The warmth of his own mother sitting on him woke Sylvester up from his deep winter sleep.”