Top 250 Diana Wynne Jones Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “A heart’s a heavy burden.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

2. “A fickle heart is the only constant in this world.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

3. “I think we ought to live happily ever after.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

4. “If I give you a hint and tell you it’s a hint, it will be information.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

5. “My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

6. “To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

7. “Yes, you are nosy. You’re a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You’re victimizing us all.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

8. “If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

9. “You must admit I have a right to live in a pigsty if I want.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

10. “Chrestomanci smiled and swept out of the room like a very long procession of one person.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

11. “You’ve no right to walk into people’s castles and take their guitars.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

12. “Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

13. “Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only need to tell things to once.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

14. “A library is a place full of mouth-watering food for thought.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

15. “Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

16. “Interesting things did seem to happen, but always to somebody else.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

17. “Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

18. “It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

19. “Do you mind not being so kind and obedient? It makes me nervous.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

20. “All these things that crib and cab in your brain, in your imagination, are in fact things that might well in later life drive you insane.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

21. “Hope is the forward-looking part of memory.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

22. “I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

23. “Every man in Ingary is scared stiff of her. You ought to know how that feels, Sophie dear.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

24. “Pray use both cats as sponges if it pleases you, infatuated infantryman.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

25. “Christopher discovered that you dealt with obnoxious masters and most older boys the way you dealt with governesses: you quite politely told them the truth in the way they wanted to hear it, so that they thought they had won and left you in peace.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

26. “There is very seldom any true secret.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

27. “Sorry, I’ve had enough of running away, Sophie. Now I’ve got something I want to protect. It’s you.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

28. “Things are going round and round in my head – or maybe my head is going round and round in things.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

29. “She said ‘Over my dead body!’ so I took her at her word.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

30. “It is quite a risk to spank a wizard for getting hysterical about his hair.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

31. “Beauty isn’t made of sugar.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

32. “I mean one of the things about being alone is that you’ve no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let’s face it, we don’t often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

33. “You go and find who you really are, and don’t let anyone stop you.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

34. “I can’t abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

35. “I’m dying of boredom,” Howl said pathetically. “Or maybe just dying.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

36. “In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

37. “And it’s a pity too that I’ve no right to open your letters. I hope you don’t get many, or my conscience will give me no peace.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

38. “It’s a lucky child that knows that they’re a genius, unaimed and all that.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

39. “Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?” “Not likely!” Howl yelled. “I’m a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I’m not doing it!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

40. “I do feel very strongly that this is one of the things which people need encouragement to sort out, because I have this very strong feeling that everybody is probably a genius at something, it’s just a question of finding this.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

Featured in: Strong Quotes

41. “A garden should be natural-seeming, with wild sections, including a large area of bluebells.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

42. “I’m beginning to think I’ve led a much too sheltered life.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

43. “The truth between two people always cuts two ways.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

44. “Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of danger. It had to be a hoax.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

45. “After that, he tried to go upstairs through the broom cupboard, and then the yard. This seemed to puzzle him a little. But finally he discovered the stairs, all except the bottom on, and fell up them on his face. The whole castle shook.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

46. “It’s amazing the way one can take a step ten and a half miles long and still always land in a cowpat.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

47. “Calcifer agreed to speed up the castle because of a scarecrow? Dear Sophie, do please tell me how you bully a fire demon into being that obliging. I’d dearly love to know!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

48. “Busy old fool, unruly Sophie.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

49. “If you must know, I-I had never in my life kissed a young lady, and you are far too beautiful to me to want to get it wrong!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

50. “As always, in times of trouble, she knew what she wanted to do. “I’m going to read a book,” she said.”

— Diana Wynne Jones