The Princess and the Goblin Quotes

“It is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.”

“Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: ‘I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.‘”

″‘They think so much of themselves!’ said his mother. ‘Small creatures always do. The bantam is the proudest cock in my little yard.‘”

“But instead of being afraid, she felt more than happy—perfectly blissful.”

“We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.′ ‘What is that, grandmother?’ ‘To understand other people.‘”

″‘One, two, Hit and hew! Three, four, Blast and bore!‘”

“Every little girl knows how dreadful it is to find a room empty where she thought somebody was.”

“But her tale, as he did not believe more than half of it, left everything as unaccountable to him as before, and he was nearly as much perplexed as to what he must think of the princess.”

“The king, who was the wisest man in the kingdom, knew well there was a time when things must be done and questions left till afterwards.”

“The truest princess is just the one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to do them good by being humble towards them.”

″‘I don’t see anything,’ persisted Curdie. ‘Then you must believe without seeing,’ said the princess; ‘for you can’t deny it has brought us out of the mountain.‘”

“It means, my love, that I did not mean to show myself. Curdie is not yet able to believe some things. Seeing is not believing—it is only seeing.”

“I’m very much obliged to you, Irene, for getting me out of that hole, but I wish you hadn’t made a fool of me afterwards.”

“When the princess awoke from the sweetest of sleeps, she found her nurse bending over her, the housekeeper looking over the nurse’s shoulder, and the laundry-maid looking over the housekeeper’s.”

“You ought to be very happy at having got away from those demons, and instead of that I never saw you so gloomy. There must be something more.”

“But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.‘”

“That is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.”

“People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn’t seen some of it.”

“I’ve nobody to spin for just at present. I never spin without knowing for whom I am spinning.”

“Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue.”

“It is when people do wrong things wilfully that they are the more likely to do them again.”

“Perhaps you may think me foolish, but until I am sure there is nothing in my present fancy, I am more determined than ever to go on with my observations.”