first Quotes

“Once in those very early days my brother brought into the nursery the lid of a biscuit tin which he had covered with moss and garnished with twigs and flowers so as to make it a toy garden or a toy forest. That was the first beauty I ever knew.”

“Maybe you saw her first, Sam, but I spoke first.”

“So the peddler picked up his caps and put them back on his head- first his own checked cap, then the gray caps, then the brown caps, then the blue caps, then the red caps on the very top.”

“But just as he was about to leave, he saw another one all black and white and it seemed just as pretty as the first. So he took this one also.”

“I will tell you only this: that you are one of the Old Ones, the first to have been born for five hundred years, and the last. And like all such, you are bound by nature to devote yourself to the long conflict between the Light and the Dark.”

“All around the green gravel, The grass grows so green, And all the pretty maids are fit to be seen; Wash them in milk, Dress them in silk, And the first to go down shall be married.”

“As they came out from the shelter of the trees and the Great Meadows stretched before them, Kit caught her breath. She had not expected anything like this. From that first moment, in a way she could never explain, the Meadows claimed her and made her their own. As far as she could see they stretched on either side, a great level sea of green, broken here and there by a solitary graceful elm. Was it the fields of sugar cane they brought to mind, or the endless reach of the ocean to meet the sky? Or was it simply the sense of freedom and space and light that spoke to her of home?”

“There, that cloud contains the Turks, the real Turks, and these men next to me, spitting tobacco, are veterans of Christendom, and this bugle now sounding its attack, the first attack in my life, and this roaring and shaking, this shooting star plunging to earth and treated with languid irritation by veterans and horses is a cannon ball, the first enemy cannon ball I’ve ever seen. May it not be the day when I’ll say- ‘And it’s my last.‘”

“First you brush a while, and then you comb, and then you brush again until all the twigs and snarls are gone. Then you divide it up in three and braid it like this and tie a ribbon around the end.”

“As everyone knows, if the first butterfly you see is yellow the summer will be a happy one. If it is white then you will just have a quiet summer. Black and brown butterflies should never be talked about- they are much too sad.”

″‘Don’t disturb me,’ said Sniff solemnly. ‘This is the biggest moment of my life so far, and it’s my first cave.‘”

“When Katy hit the curve she took off like a kite, High over the treetops on her first and last flight, That would quickly have ended poor Katy caboose If it hadn’t been for two towering spruce. The caboose became caught in a very tight squeeze Between the tall trunks of two evergreen trees.”