Top 120 Kenneth Grahame Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “Presently I somehow found myself singing. The words were mere nonsense- irresponsible babble... Humanity would have rejected it with scorn. Nature, everywhere singing in the same key, recognized and accepted it without a flicker of dissent.”

— Kenneth Grahame

52. “Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me.”

— Kenneth Grahame

53. “Hooray!’ he cried, jumping up on seeing them, ’this is splendid!”

— Kenneth Grahame

54. “For my life, I confess to you, feels to me today somewhat narrow and circumscribed.”

— Kenneth Grahame

55. “Here and there great branches had been torn away by the sheer weight of the snow, and robins perched and hopped on them in their perky conceited way, just as if they had done it themselves.”

— Kenneth Grahame

56. “This day was only the first of man similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each of them longer and fuller of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He learned to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them.”

— Kenneth Grahame

57. “The stoats are on guard, at every point, and they make the best sentinels in the world.”

— Kenneth Grahame

58. “He was glad that he liked the country undecorated, hard and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple.”

— Kenneth Grahame

59. “The whole wood seemed running now, running hard, hunting, chasing, closing in round something or – somebody? In panic, he began to run too, aimlessly, he knew not whither.”

— Kenneth Grahame

60. “Beyond the Wild Wood comes the wild world,“said the Rat.“And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or to me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going’ nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all.”

— Kenneth Grahame

61. “The Mole had long wanted to make the I acquaintance of the Badger. He seemed, by all accounts, to be such an important personage and, though rarely visible, to make his unseen influence felt by everybody about the place.”

— Kenneth Grahame

62. “There seemed to be no end to this wood, and no beginning, and no difference in it, and, worse of all, no way out.”

— Kenneth Grahame

63. “Well, very long ago, on the spot where the Wild Wood waves now, before ever it had planted itself and grown up to what it now is, there was a city – a city of people, you know.”

— Kenneth Grahame

64. “The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at the shoulders; his paws were thin and long, his eyes much wrinkled at the corners, and he wore small gold ear rings in his neatly-set well-shaped ears. His.”

— Kenneth Grahame

65. “Sometimes, in the course of long summer evenings, the friends would take a stroll together in the Wild Wood, now successfully tamed so far as they were concerned; and it was pleasing to see how respectfully they were greeted by the inhabitants, and how.”

— Kenneth Grahame

66. “A careful inspection showed them that, even if they succeeded in righting it by themselves, the cart would travel no longer. The axles were in a hopeless state, and the missing wheel was shattered into pieces.”

— Kenneth Grahame

67. “They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this time their intoxicating babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, and lizard-haunted walls.”

— Kenneth Grahame

68. “Rat was talking so seriously, he kept saying to himself mutinously, ‘But it WAS fun, though! Awful fun!’ and making strange suppressed noises inside him, k-i-ck-ck-ck, and poop-p-p, and other sounds resembling stifled snorts, or.”

— Kenneth Grahame

69. “Don’t, for goodness’ sake, keep on saying ‘Don’t’; I hear so much of it, and it’s monotonous, and makes me tired.”

— Kenneth Grahame

70. “Such a rich chapter it had been, when one came to look back on it all! With illustrations so numerous and so very highly coloured!”

— Kenneth Grahame

71. “Once beyond the village, where the cottages ceased abruptly, on either side of the road they could smell through the darkness the friendly fields again; and they braced themselves for the last long stretch, the home stretch, the stretch that we know is bound to end, some time, in the rattle of the door-latch, the sudden firelight, and the sight of familiar things greeting us as long-absent travelers from far oversea.”

— Kenneth Grahame

72. “What is the meaning of this gross outrage?”

— Kenneth Grahame

73. “It is the restrictions placed on vice by our social code which makes its pursuit so peculiarly agreeable.”

— Kenneth Grahame

74. “He had got down to the bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple.”

— Kenneth Grahame

75. “Animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner, in single file, instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no use or support to each other in case of sudden trouble or danger.”

— Kenneth Grahame

76. “I think we’d had enough of this folly. Who ever heard of a door-mat TELLING anyone anything? They simply don’t do it. They are not that sort at all. Door-mats know their place.”

— Kenneth Grahame

77. “And let each one of the crowd try and shout it very loud, In honour of an animal of whom you’re justly proud, For it’s Toad’s – great – day!”

— Kenneth Grahame

78. “Thence, even as he gazed, a tiny column of smoke rose straight up into the still air.”

— Kenneth Grahame

79. “There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger’s origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.”

— Kenneth Grahame

80. “They told me that Billy would never come back any more, and I stared out of the window at the sun which came back, right enough, every day, and their news conveyed nothing whatever to me.”

— Kenneth Grahame

81. “Truly wise men called on each element alike to minister to their joy, and while the touch of sun-bathed air, the fragrance of garden soil, the ductible qualities of mud, and the spark-whirling rapture of playing with fire, had each their special charm, they did not overlook the bliss of getting their feet wet.”

— Kenneth Grahame

82. “I’m going to make an animal out of you, my boy!”

— Kenneth Grahame

83. “It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing.”

— Kenneth Grahame

84. “Supper was finished at last, and each animal felt that his skin was now as tight as was decently safe.”

— Kenneth Grahame

85. “Like a black pirate flag on the blue ocean of air, a hawk hung ominous; then, plummet-wise, dropped to the hedgerow, whence there rose, thin and shrill, a piteous voice of squealing. By.”

— Kenneth Grahame

86. “Why can’t fellows be allowed to do what they like when they like and as they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and watching them all the time and making remarks and poetry and things about them?”

— Kenneth Grahame

87. “Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite all you feel when your head is under water.”

— Kenneth Grahame

88. “He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to; this place, which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.”

— Kenneth Grahame

89. “Over the page I went, shifting the bit of coal to a new position; and, as the scheme of the picture disengaged itself from out the medley of colour that met my delighted eyes, first there was a warm sense of familiarity, then a dawning recognition, and then – O then! along with blissful certainty came the imperious need to clasp my stomach with both hands, in order to repress the shout of rapture that struggled to escape – it was my own little city!”

— Kenneth Grahame

90. “Banquets are always pleasant things, consisting mostly, as they do, of eating and drinking; but the specially nice thing about a banquet is, that it comes when something’s over, and there’s nothing more to worry about, and to-morrow seems a long way off.”

— Kenneth Grahame

91. “Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the basket. It never is.”

— Kenneth Grahame

92. “One member of the company was still awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the knight for whom the ladies waited at the window, the prince that was to kiss the sleeping summer back to life and love. But when meadow-sweet, debonair and odorous in amber jerkin, moved graciously to his place in the group, then the play was ready to begin.”

— Kenneth Grahame

93. “It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat.”

— Kenneth Grahame

94. “Today, to him gazing south with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; today, the unseen was everything. the unknown the only real fact of life.”

— Kenneth Grahame

95. “Toad,” she said presently, “just listen, please. I have an aunt who is a washerwoman.” “There, there,” said Toad, graciously and affably, “never mind; think no more about it. I have several aunts who ought to be washerwomen.” “Do be quiet a minute, Toad,” said the girl. “You talk too much, that’s your chief fault, and I’m trying to think, and you hurt my head.”

— Kenneth Grahame

96. “And then they heard the angels tell “Who were the first to cry Nowell? Animals all, as it befell, In the stable where they did dwell! Joy shall be theirs in the morning!”

— Kenneth Grahame

97. “Washerwoman, indeed!′ he shouted recklessly. ‘Ho! ho! I am the Toad, the motor-car snatcher, the prison-breaker, the Toad who always escapes! Sit still, and you shall know what driving really is, for you are in the hands of the famous, the skillful, the entirely fearless Toad!”

— Kenneth Grahame

98. “They argued from history,’ continued the Rat. ‘They said that no criminal laws had ever been known to prevail against cheek and plausibility such as yours, combined with the power of a long purse.”

— Kenneth Grahame

99. “Never in his life had he seen a river before – this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again.”

— Kenneth Grahame

100. “All along the backwater, Through the rushes tall, Ducks are a-dabbling, Up tails all! Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails, Yellow feet a-quiver, Yellow bills all out of sight Busy in the river! Slushy green undergrowth Where the roach swim – Here we keep our larder, Cool and full and dim. Everyone for what he likes! We like to be Heads down, tails up, Dabbling free! High in the blue above Swifts whirl and call – We are down a-dabbling Uptails all!”

— Kenneth Grahame