Alice Rees > Alice's Quotes

“To the uneducated an A is just three sticks.”
― A.A. Milne, The World of Winnie-the-Pooh

“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?”
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“That's the worst…or the best…of real life, Anne. It won't let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable…and succeeding…even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

“I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all my jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.”
― Wendy Cope, Serious Concerns

“Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.”
― L.M. Montgomery

“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Those who cannot conceive of Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Some people care too much. I think it's called love.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
― A.A. Milne

“Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragic romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God's sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”
― A.A. Milne

“I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.”
― A.A. Milne

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would, I'd never leave.”
― A.A. Milne

“How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
― A.A. Milne, The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh

“There must be somebody there, because somebody must have said "Nobody.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings, make use of you at night. To crave another while pecking your cheek. To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”
― A.A. Milne

“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”
― A.A. Milne

“The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations.”
― William Blake

“It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and showing us yet another chapter.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Rainbow Valley

“You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain.”
― Vivian Greene

“If there ever comes a day when we can't be together, keep me in your heart. I'll stay there forever.”
― A.A. Milne

“Now always feels infinite and never is. I was wrong about life's meaninglessness when I was a teenager, and I'm wrong about it now. The truth is far more complicated than mere hopelessness.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn