Five Children and It Quotes

“For really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for getting you out of it.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Trying not to believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is as bad for the temper as anything I know.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has crept in, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it....”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Child,” said the Sand-fairy sleepily, “I can only advise you to think before you speak” –
“But I thought that you never give advice.”
“That piece doesn’t count,” it said. “You’ll never take it! Besides, it’s not original. It’s in all the copy-books.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see one?" It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I see you are, now. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you." "You came to look at me, several sentences ago,”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Saracen's”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“[I]t is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably sinful at one and the same time.”
― Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It

“Chapter 1. Beautiful As The Day The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, "Oh, is this it?”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“...for he was not a brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds, booby-traps, original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and other little accomplishments which make a home happy.”
― E Nesbit, Five Children and It Illustrated

“We haven't really got anything worth having for our wishes.'
'We've had things happening,' said Robert; 'that's always something.'
'It's not enough, unless they're the right things,' said Cyril firmly.”
― E Nesbit, Five Children and It Illustrated Edition

“The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“My Lamb, you are so very small, You have not learned to read at all; Yet never a printed book withstands The urgence of your dimpled hands. So, though this book is for yourself, Let mother keep it on the shelf Till you can read. O days that pass, That day will come too soon, alas!”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It

“They didn't know being dead is only being asleep, and you're bound to wake up somewhere or other, either where you go to sleep or some better place.”
― E. Nesbit, Five Children and It