Top 250 Diana Wynne Jones Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Howl said, “I think we ought to live happily ever after,” and she thought he meant it.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

152. “Mr. Lynn gave her one of his considering looks. “People are strange,” he said. “Usually they’re much stranger than you think. Start from there and you’ll never be unpleasantly surprised. Do you fancy doughnuts?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

153. “So you eat them. And don’t try chucking them away. I’ll know. I empty the bins.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

154. “It was only when Shona, in sheer fury, turned the carnivorous sheep among them that they moved. They ran, some of them with charming little white sheep attached to their legs or backsides and the rest shouting about monsters.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

155. “When you grow up to be an author and write books, you’ll think you’re making the books up, but they’ll all really be true, somewhere.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

156. “The most she knew about gardens was the Bakers’ own backyard, which contained one large mulberry tree and a rosebush, plus the window boxes where her mother grew runner beans. She knew there was earth under the plants and that the earth contained worms. She shuddered.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

157. “I’ve been feeling rather bloodthirsty lately, and saving the world seemed a good way to use it.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

158. “Derk was sick of falling backward into his trench, but he never had time to invent a different way of being killed.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

159. “One does not want glory accepted as a matter of course. One wants to shock and astonish people with it.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

160. “You owe me. You roasted my father.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

161. “I hate dialect. It gets in the way. If there is a need for dialect, you can render it quite easily by reproducing the rythm of that form of speech. Then you don’t need to bother with silly spellings.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

162. “By this time, half the people in High Norland were gathered in Royal Square to stare at the castle. They all watched with disbelief as the castle rose slightly into the air and glided toward the road that led southward. It was hardly more than an alley, really. “It’ll never fit!” people said. But the castle somehow squeezed itself narrow enough to drift away along it and out of sight. The citizens of High Norland gave it a cheer as it went.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

163. “Somewhere in the lane after that they came level with a small door next to a fried chicken shop. There was a small red-lit sign over this door.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

164. “I was meaning to be kind to you this evening, but you make it very difficult.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

165. “It seems that Fate has decreed that I live through my entire daydream in reality!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

166. “Where’s school?” he shrieked at her. “I’m missing cricket practice!” For half an hour after that the hospital was in total confusion, while everyone tried to catch a five-foot corpse clothed mostly in a flying sheet, which raced up and down the corridors shrieking that it was missing cricket practice.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

167. “That can go in the cabinet, and so can this One Ring. No, don’t put it on, you fool! It’s dangerous!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

168. “Charles liked poetry because the lines were so short. You could think your own thoughts in the spaces around the print.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

169. “Don’t think I can’t see your point of view – you’re a young fellow, disappointed in love, impatient – naturally you think Fate’s against you. Take it from me, Fate doesn’t care either way most of the time.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

170. “All I wanted to do was sit down and read a book, she thought, and I come home to a flood!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

171. “But her eyes were blue and full of anxieties, and her hair was darkish.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

172. “I may be clever, she thought, quite sadly, but I’m not in the least kind or sympathetic.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

173. “We can’t all be Mad Hatters,” said Howl.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

174. “Oh, how your ears flap and your long nose twitches!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

175. “Then the geese replaced themselves with six pigs and vanished.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

176. “When your surname is Smith, you need to make very sure everyone knows just which Smith you are.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

177. “If you stood up and told the truth in the wrong way, it was not true any longer, though it might be as powerful as ever.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

178. “You can’t be fussy when you’re off to seek your fortune.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

179. “I feel ill. I’m going to bed, where I may die. – Howl.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

180. “I’ve never seen why people put such value on things being natural,” Howl said, and Sophie knew then that he was scarcely changed at all.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

181. “His bedroom door did escape him. “What a lie that was!” Howl remarked as he walked into the wall. “My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.” He walked into the wall several times more, in several different places, before he discovered his bedroom door and crashed his way through it. Sophie could hear him falling about, saying that his bed was dodging.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

182. “Howl conjured another wad of handkerchiefs and glowered at Sophie over them out of eyes that were now red-rimmed and watery. Then he stood up. ‘I feel ill,’ he announced. ‘I’m going to bed, where I may die.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

183. “It’s silly to let the bad things come out on top! The good, happy things are just as important. They just don’t seem to last. You want to catch them at their best and keep them if you can.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

184. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. He’s a mess.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

185. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that the Devil, however he appears, is never a perfect gentleman?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

186. “You can’t alter the past. The only thing you can alter is the future. People write stories pretending you can alter the past, but it can’t be done. All you can do to the past is remember it wrong or interpret it differently, and that’s no good to us.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

187. “Don’t worry, old thing,” Sophie said to the face. “You look quite healthy. Besides, this is much more like you than you really are.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

188. “Nobody’s safe in a wizard’s house,” Calcifer said feelingly.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

189. “Perhaps she was a little mad, but then old women often were.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

190. “I love Wales, but it doesn’t love me.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

191. “Howl’s voice was presently heard shouting weakly, “Help me, someone! I’m dying from neglect up here!” Sophie snorted.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

192. “I’m a coward. Only way I can do something this frighteningly is to tell myself I’m not doing it!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

193. “By now it was clear that Calcifer did all the strong magic in the castle and Michael did all the hackwork, while Howl gadded off catching girls and exploiting the other two just as Fanny had exploited her.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

194. “I like you, too!” she blubbered at the top of her voice. “I do, I do. You’re a lovely Goon. You’re my favourite Goon in all the world!”

— Diana Wynne Jones

195. “Women do not count,” said the Sultan. “Therefore, it is impossible to be unfair to them.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

196. “I hope your bacon burns,” Calcifer said, muffled under the pan.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

197. “Tell me, do you sometimes find yourself unaccountably sad on some days?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

198. “The tiny princess glanced up with a shy smile. “Boyth, all,” she said, in a small, lisping voice. Morgan’s.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

199. “He is real, in his own way,” Ann pointed out. “After all, what’s real? How do you know I’m real, or if you are?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

200. “My impression,” said the King, “was that Howl is an unprincipled, slippery rogue with a glib tongue and a clever mind. Would you agree?”

— Diana Wynne Jones