Top 250 Frances Hodgson Burnett Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

2. “If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

3. “I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

4. “At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done – then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

5. “So long as I know what’s expected of me, I can manage.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

6. “Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

7. “Everything’s a story – You are a story -I am a story.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

8. “I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

9. “She made herself stronger by fighting with the wind.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

10. “To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in, you may never get over it as long as you live.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

11. “And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

12. “Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worse thing never quite comes.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

13. “As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

14. “Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden-in all the places.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

15. “She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

Featured in: Book Quotes, Quotes About Stories

16. “When a man looks at the stars, he grows calm and forgets small things. They answer his questions and show him that his earth is only one of the million worlds. Hold your soul still and look upward often, and you will understand their speech. Never forget the stars.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

17. “Two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way – or always to have it.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

18. “You are nothing but a doll. Nothing but a doll – doll – doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a doll!”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

19. “You either build up or you tear down. You either keep in the light where you can see, or you stand in the dark and fight everything that comes near you, because you can’t see and you think it’s an enemy.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

20. “One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

21. “There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in – that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your enemies. I scarcely ever do.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

Featured in: Strong Quotes

22. “If you fill your mind with a beautiful thought, there will be no room in it for an ugly one. – King Amor.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

23. “One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts – just mere thoughts – are as powerful as electric batteries – as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

24. “He’s been spoiled ’til salt won’t save him.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

25. “Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

26. “If nature has made you a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart. And though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

27. “Between the lines of every story there is another story, and that is one that is never heard and can only be guessed at by the people who are good at guessing.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

28. “My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if they’re rich and important.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

29. “Nothing in the world is so strong as a kind heart.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

30. “It’s a lonely place. Sometimes it’s the loneliest place in the world.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

31. “People never like me and I never like people.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

32. “Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world, but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

33. “All women are princesses, it is our right.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

34. “As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she had felt shy.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

35. “You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you’re too curious.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

36. “The mug from the washstand was used as Becky’s tea cup, and the tea was so delicious that it was not necessary to pretend that it was anything but tea.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

37. “Their eyes met with a singular directness of gaze. Between them a spark passed which was not afterwards to be extinguished, though neither of them knew the moment of its kindling...”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

38. “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

39. “The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

40. “She says it has nothing to do with what you look like, or what you have. It has only to do with what you think of and what you do.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

41. “To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

42. “It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

43. “Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

44. “The sun is shining – the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The flower are growing – the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic – being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me – the Magic is in me. It is in me – it is in me. In every one of us.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

45. “Perhaps you can feel if you can’t hear,” was her fancy. “Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don’t know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

46. “She looked into the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a passion of sobbing- Sara who never cried.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

47. “The mere fact of her sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

48. “Perhaps you can feel if you can’t hear. Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

49. “When you kept the weeds from your bare little garden, and when you dug for others and hid away ugliness and disorder, you planted a Blue Flower every day. You have planted more than all the rest, and your reward shall be the sweetest, for you planted without the seeds.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett

50. “The obsession which is called Love is an emotion past all explanation. The persons susceptible to its power are as things beneath a spell. They see, hear, and feel that of which the rest of their world is unaware, and will remain unaware for ever.”

— Frances Hodgson Burnett