The Borrowers Quotes

“But my brother said that, underneath, he thought they were frightened. It was because they were frightened, he thought, that they had grown so small. Each generation had become smaller and smaller, and more and more hidden. In the olden days, it seems, and in some parts of England, our ancestors talked quite openly about the “little people.”

“Borrowing,” he said after a while. “Is that what you call it?” “What else could you call it?” asked Arrietty. “I’d call it stealing.”

“Strong gates,” said Pod, “gates you can’t open. What are they there for?” “Against the mice?” said Arrietty. “Yes,” agreed Pod uncertainly, as though he gave her half a mark, “but mice never hurt no one. What else?” […] “Cats?” echoed Arrietty, surprised. “Or to keep you in?” suggested Pod.

“Not that I’m afraid of mice,” Homily would say, “but I can’t abide the smell.”

“It was an eye. Or it looked like an eye. Clear and bright like the color of the sky. An eye like her own but enormous. A glaring eye. Breathless with fear, she sat up.”

“She looked across the great plain of floor where, in the distance, the stairs mounted. “Another world above,” she thought, “world on world…” and shivered slightly.”

“Tea was indeed ready, waiting on the round table in the sitting room with a bright fire burning in the cogwheel. How familiar the room seemed, and homely, but, suddenly, somehow strange. ”

“Everything they had was borrowed; they had nothing of their own at all. Nothing. In spite of this, my brother said, they were touchy and conceited, and thought they owned the world.”

“Yes, and he was our little brother. I think that was why”—she thought for a moment, still smiling to herself—“yes, why he told us such impossible stories, such strange imaginings. He was jealous, I think, because we were older—and because we could read better.”

“She was so full of happiness that, out of Homily’s sight, her toes danced on the green moss. Here she was on the other side of the grating—here she was at last, on the outside—looking in!”

“And yet”—she looked into the fire—“there was something about him—perhaps because we were brought up in India among mystery and magic and legends—something that made us think that he saw things that other people could not see; sometimes we’d know he was teasing, but at other times—well, we were not so sure…”

“Arrietty stared up at him. So this was “the boy”! Breathless, she felt, and light with fear.”