Top 250 Diana Wynne Jones Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “It’s like life,” Clennen said. “You may wonder what goes on inside, but what matters is the look of it and the kind of performance we give.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

203. “The rule was: Lose your temper, lose a customer. She had just proved that rule. It troubled her to realise how very enjoyable it had been.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

204. “Pudgy is comfortable,” said Julia. “It must be a nuisance to look like a china doll, the way you do.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

205. “In this world people are used to doing by magic what we do by science.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

207. “Oh, hello, Howl,” Michael said helplessly.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

208. “You know the way they have mouths that don’t seem to smile in the same way as normal people’s.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

209. “Though he did not seem to want to leave the hills, he was known to amuse himself by collecting young girls and sucking the souls from them.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

210. “I shall die and then you’ll all be sorry.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

211. “In fact, I had time to be maddened by Christopher generally. He would keep calling me “Grant” in that superior way, and there were times when I wanted to hit him for it, or shout that it was only my alias, or – anyway he really annoyed me. Then he would say something that doubled me up with laughter and I discovered I liked him again. It was truly confusing.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

212. “Sophie nearly said the smell reminded her of the bathroom after Howl had been in it, but she bit it back.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

214. “I know Brian is nasty, but I had always thought it was his situation before this,′ Nirupam remarked... Charles could not answer at once, because he was not sure that a person’s character could be separate from his situation in quite this way.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

215. “You can’t blame that genie for hating everyone,” she said. “Think how you felt shut in that dungeon.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

217. “You do not seem to me to be a beast. This makes me quite sure that you can’t really be a man.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

218. “Ann left him there, kneeling among the violets looking out into the fog as if that glimpse of the castle had somehow broken his heart.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

220. “Sophie began to feel that Wizard Howl and the Witch of the Waste should get together.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

221. “I think it was then that it dawned on me that Mum wasn’t going to notice Chris was missing. She has been made so that she thinks Chris is just round the corner all the time. She doesn’t realise that she never sees him. I don’t know why I didn’t understand earlier. If Aunt Maria can turn Chris into a wolf, she’s surely strong enough to do this to Mum- except that it seems a different kind of thing, much more natural and ordinary, and I didn’t really think she could do both kinds.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

222. “There’s an enormous library, which boasts a copy of every book in the world – and many more from other worlds as well.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

223. “When there’s need enough, a way can often be found.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

224. “Sophie shrugged again. She would have to deal with that problem when she came back.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

225. “It was a very powerful politeness.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

226. “If it had not been time to get up, he would have gone straight back to the beginning and started reading the book again.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

227. “She realized Howl was going out then. “You’ll make your cold worse,” she said. “I shall die and then you’ll all be sorry,” the red-bearded man said, and went out through the door with the knob green-down.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

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

— Diana Wynne Jones

230. “As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that a great relief.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

231. “Sophie,” Michael said in a voice of doom.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

232. “Sophie looked up at him. As she had feared, the hard black-and-white daylight coming through the broken wall showed her that Howl had not bothered to shave or tidy his hair.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

233. “It just lies behind the slightly more normal things I do do. This sense that most people are crazy, if you look deep enough. Adults particularly, and children have to deal with them.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

234. “The job Chrestomanci has is to make sure this world isn’t run entirely by witches. Ordinary people have rights too.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

235. “What made me think I wanted life to be interesting?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

236. “That was Sophie’s trouble. She was remorseless, but she lacked method.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

237. “You don’t give hired assassins supper, do you?” Quentin smiled. “No, but when a wolf follows your sleigh, you give it meat,” he.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

238. “And seeing clearly that his princesses would not be able to walk on air as we djinns do, he first ordered me to steal a certain moving castle belonging to a wizard in this land of Ingary in which to house his brides, and then he ordered me to commence stealing princesses.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

239. “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

240. “He was standing holding the door to the stairs open with an arm that was entirely hidden inside an immense blue-and-silver sleeve. His feet, on the bottom stair, were standing inside the top half of a gigantic blue-and-silver jacket. Howl’s other arm did not come anywhere near the other huge sleeve. Sophie could see that arm in outline, making bulging gestures under a vast frill of collar. Behind Howl, the stairs were full of blue-and-silver suit trailing back all the way to his bedroom.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

241. “Now there, Charles,′ said Chrestomanci, ’you have an excellent example quite apart from rights and wrongs, of why it is such a bad idea to do things to people. Everyone is now sorry for Simon. Which is not what you want at all, is it?”

— Diana Wynne Jones

242. “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

243. “Is something the matter?” Sophie sniffed. “I’m old.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

244. “I thank you for giving me ten times my former speed.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

245. “The more I see of witchcraft, the more it seems just an easy way to be nasty.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

246. “Sophie scrubbed on vigorously. “You’ll be much happier when it’s all nice and clean,” she said. “But I’m miserable now!” Michael protested.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

247. “And the scarecrow went soaring away. Up and backward it went, rags fluttering, arms wheeling in protest, up and out, and on and on, until it was a soaring speck in the sky, then a vanishing point in the clouds, and then not to be seen at all.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

248. “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

249. “Odeio os infelizes – disse Calcifer. – Eles pingam em mim. Prefiro os furiosos.”

— Diana Wynne Jones

250. “Janet had an odd air of being dressed up, rather than dressed.”

— Diana Wynne Jones