Top 100 Cressida Cowell Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.”

— Cressida Cowell

2. “There’s no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup, only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imagination.”

— Cressida Cowell

3. “But how can we know that dragons did not exist? We have never actually BEEN to the Dark Ages.”

— Cressida Cowell

4. “The past is another land, and we cannot go to visit. So, if I say there were dragons, and men who rode upon their backs, who alive has been there and can tell me that I’m wrong?”

— Cressida Cowell

5. “There were dragons when I was a boy.”

— Cressida Cowell

6. “Books are like dragons... if we do not believe in them, and read them, they will cease to exist. How, then, will we learn the language and understand the stories of the dear dead ghosts of the past? Save the Dragons. Speak Dragonese. Read a book.”

— Cressida Cowell

7. “But then I have always been somewhat of a square peg in a round hole.”

— Cressida Cowell

8. “I was not the sort of boy who could train a dragon with a mere lifting of an eyebrow. I was not a natural at the Heroism business. I had to work at it. This is the story of becoming a Hero the Hard Way.”

— Cressida Cowell

9. “Being frightened is not the same as being a coward.”

— Cressida Cowell

10. “The Hero cares not for a wild winter’s storm. For it carries him swift on the back of the storm. All may be lost and our hearts may be worn, but a Hero fights forever.”

— Cressida Cowell

11. “Twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death.”

— Cressida Cowell

12. “And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.”

— Cressida Cowell

13. “It is a lot easier to be brave when you know you have no alternative.”

— Cressida Cowell

14. “Books were despised by the Viking Tribes, as they were seen as a horrible civilizing influence and a threat to the barbarian culture.”

— Cressida Cowell

15. “A promise is a promise if it is made in blood.”

— Cressida Cowell

16. “Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak. Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.”

— Cressida Cowell

17. “Long ago, on the wild and windy isle of Berk, a smallish Viking with a longish name stood up to his ankles in snow.”

— Cressida Cowell

18. “You do have to listen to the stories, for stories always mean something. The question that worries me is: WHAT exactly do they mean?”

— Cressida Cowell

19. “You cannot fight time itself, slay the minutes and hours with your blade, wipe the bleeding seconds on your shirt. Time cannot be fought.”

— Cressida Cowell

20. “If it doesn’t end well, then it isn’t the end.”

— Cressida Cowell

21. “Tomorrow. There was something hopeful, even about the word.”

— Cressida Cowell

22. “The world will need a Hero, and it might as well be you.”

— Cressida Cowell

23. “The thing about grown ups is that they’re always wanting you to be this Great Hero and Leader. What’s wrong with being NORMAL, for Thor’s sake? What’s wrong with just being SO-SO at stuff? They’re just totally unrealistic...”

— Cressida Cowell

24. “History is a ghost story. My own childhood has passed into history, and the ghosts I find there are the ghosts of Heroes and dragons and Berserks and witches, and it has become fashionable not to believe in these things anymore. But I believe, for I was there.”

— Cressida Cowell

25. “I wanted to be a King who would found a New World, not in some misty country far across the seas, but right here, right now, at home.”

— Cressida Cowell

26. “We all make mistakes. We all need second chances and even third, fourth, and fifth chances.”

— Cressida Cowell

27. “Remember, there is nothing wrong with a healthy sense of self-respect.”

— Cressida Cowell

28. “If you’re going to start a new life, you might as well start it NOW.”

— Cressida Cowell

29. “Hiccup: Thank You For Nothing You Stupid Reptile.”

— Cressida Cowell

30. “We’re all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.”

— Cressida Cowell

31. “The past has a way of catching up with you.”

— Cressida Cowell

32. “Because: Love Never Dies, What is Within is More Important than What is Without, The Best is Not Always the Most Obvious and Once You’ve Loved Truly, Thor, then You Know the Way.”

— Cressida Cowell

33. “And long after Kings are forgotten, and their names have fallen into dust, the good deeds and the actions of the Heroes live on in glory.”

— Cressida Cowell

34. “However bad things seem to be, they can always get worse!”

— Cressida Cowell

35. “History is a set of repeating circles, like the tide. The wind does blow through the ruins of tomorrow. But it is more a question of two steps forward, one step back. Humans and dragons make the same mistakes, again and again, but things do get better over time.”

— Cressida Cowell

36. “Are you the stuff that hero’s are made of? Or are you a jellyfish in a skirt?”

— Cressida Cowell

37. “Most of us are lucky not to be Kings and Heroes, because we do not have to make the choices that Kings and Heroes have to make.”

— Cressida Cowell

38. “The past haunts the present in mores ways than we realize. It certainly scares the living daylights out of me.”

— Cressida Cowell

39. “Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in, even against those you love, and that can be harder than you think.”

— Cressida Cowell

40. “In my beginning is my end... there were Dragons when I was a boy.”

— Cressida Cowell

41. “Well, suffering swordfish,” exclaimed Fishlegs. “Hiccup is LEFTHANDED.”

— Cressida Cowell

42. “Sometimes a King has to do terrible things in order to protect those he has sworn to look after. When the stakes are so high, dreadful decisions have to be taken. It is the responsibility of a King to take on that burden, that guilt.”

— Cressida Cowell

43. “K-k-keep your helmet on. T-t-toothless doing his BEST.”

— Cressida Cowell

44. “This is the problem with adventures. They bring out parts of you that you never even knew were there.”

— Cressida Cowell

45. “Sometimes it is not until the Final Chapter that you realise what a quest has REALLY been about all along.”

— Cressida Cowell

46. “Isn’t Fate Artistic?”

— Cressida Cowell

47. “The mighty bosoms of Big-Boobied Bertha had killed many a Warrior in mortal combat.”

— Cressida Cowell

48. “Perhaps I am a foolish, fond old dragon who never learns from his own mistakes. But I have to believe that the humans and the dragons are capable of living together. I have to hope that the impossible can be possible. I have to trust in the boy and hope for the best...”

— Cressida Cowell

49. “Size isn’t everything... However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don’t mean fight with the power of our fists... I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.”

— Cressida Cowell

50. “However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don’t mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords. That has always been the problem with us Vikings. I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams.”

— Cressida Cowell