Quotations in A Little Princess
“She was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up people and the world they belonged to.”
“'Ah, madame, there is not much I can teach her. She has not LEARNED French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite.'”
“'Things happen to people by accident. A lot of nice accidents have happened to me… Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? … Perhaps I'm a HIDEOUS child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials.'”
“Something else had warmed and fed her, and the something else was Sara.”
“'If I WAS a princess—a REAL princess, I could scatter largess to the populace. But even if I am only a pretend princess, I can invent little things to do for people. Things like this. She was just as happy as if it was largess. I'll pretend that to do things people like is scattering largess. I've scattered largess.'”
“…but diamond mines sounded so like the Arabian Nights that no one could be indifferent.”
“'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.'”
“Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment.”
“'It is true, sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one.'”
“If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and thought there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things, sweet things—help and comfort and laughter—and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.”
“'There is nothing so nice as supposing. It's almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real.'”
“'Oh Becky, I told you we were just the same—only two little girls—just two little girls. You see how true it is. There's no difference now. I'm not a princess anymore.'”
“The change in her life did not come about gradually, but was made all at once.”
“In her proud little heart she wanted them to see that she was trying to earn her living and not accepting charity.”
“'Soldiers don't complain, I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a war.'”
“'Well, I'm miserable—and no one need interfere.'”
“'I could not bear it anymore, I dare say you could live without me, Sara; but I could not live without you. I was nearly DEAD.'”
“'Adversity tries people, and mine has tried you and proved how nice you are.'”
"And it all feels as high up—as if it was another world."
"'It's a lonely place. Sometimes it's the loneliest place in the world.'"
"'I know I am queer, and I TRY to be nice.'"
"'EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a story—I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story.'"
"To be as proud as that would be a cruel thing."
"It fed her hungry heart to feel them nestling up to her."
"'When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word—just to look at them and THINK.'"
"Remorse overtook her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile."
"He was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was evident that he was shattered in health and unhappy in mind."
"It used to seem as if she had all the sky and the world to herself."
"'It's a Splendid one. It makes me feel almost afraid—as if something strange was just going to happen. The Splendid ones always make me feel like that.'"
"The truth was that the poor fellow felt as if his gods had intervened, and the kind little voice came from heaven itself."
"'Whatever comes cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatter, I can be a princess inside. It would be east to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.'"
"He had met with great misfortunes which had for a time so imperilled his whole fortune that he had thought himself ruined and disgraced forever."
"'Perhaps you can FEEL if you can't hear, perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls.'"
"'I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail—I reproach myself for losing my courage.'"
"'If I'm a princess—when they were poor and driven from their thrones—they always shared—with the populace—if they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves.'"
"'All her life each day I know. Her going out I know, and her coming in; her sadness and her poor joys; her coldness and her hunger.'"
"'Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people.'"
"'I suppose soldiers feel like this when they are on a long and weary march.'"
"To the little girl in the attic. From a friend."
"'The spirit and will of any other child would have been entirely humbled and broken by—by the changes she has had to submit to. But, upon my word, she seems as little subdues as if—as if she were a princess.'"
"'Carmichael, it is the child—the child!'"
"'I—TRIED not to be anything else, even when I was coldest and hungriest—I tried not to be.'"
"'I forgot you didn't know. It was the day the dream came true.'"
"'You see, I know what it is to be hungry, and it is very hard when one cannot even PRETEND it away.'"
Taken from: Burnett, F. H. (1903) A Little Princess. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/146