Top 250 Diana Wynne Jones Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 2 of 6

51. “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

52. “Busy old fool, unruly Sophie.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

53. “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

54. “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

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

56. “Doras II was a somewhat absentminded king, It is said, when Death came to summon him, Doras granted Death the usual formal audience and then dismissed him from his presence. Death was too embarrassed to return until many years later- Ka’a Orto’o, Gnomic Utterances.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

57. “Nobody gets praised for the right reasons.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

58. “Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

59. “It does not seem to me that I have the right to foist a story on people, most of whom are children who should be learning all the time, unless I am learning from it too.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

60. “One person ought to treat another person properly, even if the person’s himself.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

61. “He picked up the skull and knocked an onion ring out of its eye socket. “I see Sophie has been busy again. Couldn’t you have restrained her, my friend?” The skull yattered its teeth at him. Howl put it down rather hastily.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

62. “I seem to have excalibured this knife.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

63. “I am a total zombie just after I wake up. It takes me half an hour even to get my eyes open. Ask anyone who knows me. I can’t see; I can’t talk properly; I can’t do anything without help. The only think I can do properly is think. And I know how to exploit my condition. I’ve had years of practice.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

64. “You have no right to make jigsaws of people.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

65. “Things we are accustomed to regard as myth or fairy story are very much present in people’s lives. Nice people behave like wicked stepmothers. Every day.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

66. “Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

67. “In addition, Master Twinkle seems convinced that someone is denying him a pair of stripey trousers.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

68. “But whoever heard of enchanted bacon anyway?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

69. “Fantasy for me as a kid was real, and I had a fantasy about what life was, whether it was sort of wicked and dire, or wholly normal, or whatever. Anything really close to home is not, it seems to me, what a good book should be about.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

70. “Mother Very Easily Made Jam Sandwiches Under No Protest.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

71. “But I discovered that people like me – they do, you know, if you like them – and then it was all right.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

72. “He scarcely saw his parents. When Christopher was small, he was terrified that he would meet Papa out walking in the Park one day and not recognize him.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

73. “But I do think that when people say ‘a learning curve,’ they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

75. “You cannot rob robbers with a kitten in your hat!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

76. “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

77. “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

78. “That’s magic I admire, using something that exists anyway and turning it round into a curse.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

79. “Howl said, “I think we ought to live happily ever after,” and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more eventful than any story made it sound, though she was determined to try.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

80. “Doors are very powerful things. Things are different on either side of them.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

81. “I remember passing the tomboy, sitting in her special place of punishment opposite the bully. She was blazing with her deed, as if she had actually been touched by a god. And I thought that this confirmed all my theories: a child in her position is open to any heroic myth I care to use; she is inward with folktales; she would feel the force of any magical or divine intervention.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

82. “It was odd. As a girl, Sophie would have shriveled with embarrassment at the way she was behaving. As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that a great relief.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

83. “SAGE. A wise and Holy man who died a long time ago. No one modern qualifies.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

84. “Oh! Polly thought. Why aren’t all girls locked up by law the year they turn fifteen? They do such stupid things!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

85. “Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy?” Howl asked. “Make toast!?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

86. “All power corrupts, but we need electricity.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

87. “I’m going to bed, where I may die.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

88. “Sophie did not care to think how Howl might react if Fanny woke him by stabbing him with her parasol.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

89. “They knew that if, as a child, you do pluck up the courage to hit a bully, it is an act of true heroism – as great as that of Beowulf in his old age.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

90. “SHE LIKES MY SPARK!!!! – Calcifer.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

91. “Be daffodils in June, you beastly things!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

92. “Some people are thoroughly self-centred. This thing goes with me. I need it for moral support.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

93. “Sophie’s experience told her that tantrums are seldom about the thing they appear to be about.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

94. “I’m not being nosy!” Sophie protested. “That room – !” “Yes, you are nosy,” said Howl. “You’re a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You’re victimizing us all.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

95. “I feel ill,” he announced. “I’m going to bed, where I may die.” He tottered piteously to the stairs. “Bury me beside Mrs. Pentstemmon,” he croaked as he went up then to bed.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

96. “Go to bed, you fool,” Calcifer said sleepily. “You’re drunk.” “Who, me?” said Howl. “I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

97. “What’s the good of being civilized, that’s what I’d like to know? It just means other people can break the rules and you can’t.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

98. “He lied about that. He didn’t want to annoy you. He’s a slitherer-outer, if you know what I mean, Your Majesty.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

99. “Howl’s very fickle,” said Calcifer. “He’s only interested until the girl falls in love with him. Then he can’t be bothered with her.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

100. “She stood for a moment looking out at a slowly moving view of the hills, watching heather slide past underneath the door, feeling the wind blow her wispy hair, and listening to the rumble and grind of the big black stones as the castle moved.”

— Diana Wynne Jones