Joan Aiken Quotes

″‘Oh, thank you indeed, sir,’ said the man with heartfelt gratitude. ‘Bless your noble heart!‘”

″‘I was looking for my cousin Sylvia, who is arriving this evening.’ ‘I am aware of the fact,’ Miss Slighcarp replied coldly, ‘but that does not excuse bad manners. Where, pray, is your curtsy?‘”

“Girls will be girls, Miss Slighcarp, and you must allow something for the natural high spirits and excitement attendant on your own arrival and the expected one of her cousin.”

“She picked up a jug of warm water which a housemaid had just brought, and dashed it full in the face of her new instructress. Miss Slighcarp reeled under the impact- her bonnet came off; so did her gray hair, which, apparently, was a wig, leaving her bald, dripping, and livid with rage.”

“Reckless, foolish indulgence.”

“The thought of the old lady, carefully preparing for her solitary slumbers, was too much for Sylvia, and tears began to run silently down her cheeks...”

“At length she brought out from concealment under her mantle her most treasured possession, and held it lovingly in her arms. This was a doll named Annabelle, made of wood, not much larger than a candle, and plainly dressed, but extremely dear to Sylvia.”

“A year soon went by, and when the North Wind came back to the little house by the sea, Laura was able to crawl about, and to play with her three bright, shining raindrops. But she never took the chain off.”

“There was an old man and an old woman, and they lived in a very cold country. One winter day the old man said to the old woman, ‘My dear, it is so cold, I should like it very much of you would make a good, hot apple pie.”

“While she was doing this, the old man said, ‘Look out of the window, my dear, see it is beginning to snow.’ And the old woman looked out of the window at the snow, coming down so fast out of the white sky.”

“There once was a little girl called Emma Pippin. She had red rosy cheeks and brown hair and she lived with her Aunt Lou. There were very poor, too poor to buy a house, so they lived in an old bus.”

‘This is how it all began’. A baker’s cat who swells to the size of a whale when his mistress feeds him yeast; and, a house that stands on one leg - these are just some of the objects and characters that figure in these delightful stories.

“A man called Mr Jones and his wife lived near the sea. One stormy night Mr Jones was in his garden when he saw the holly tree by his gate begin to toss and shake. A voice cried, ‘Help me! I’m stuck in the tree! Help me, or the storm will go on all night.”

“There was a little girl called Janet, and it was her birthday. She had lots of presents. A little red bicycle. And a pair of roller-skates. And a skipping-rope. And a big pile of books. But just the same, Janet was not very happy.”

A necklace of raindrops that keeps its owner dry in the heaviest rainstorm; a tiger that runs faster than the wind; a huge floating apple pie with a piece of sky in it.

“The cat sat on the mat. Lots of cat do that, everybody knows. And nothing strange comes of it. But once a cat sat on a mat and something strange did come of it.”

“It stood by a high, white wall. Inside this wall were many lovely green apple trees, on which were growing many lovely red apples. The apple trees were owned by a proud, grand man called Sir Laxton Superb.”