Alan Alexander Milne (pronounced /ˈmɪln/) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems.
A. A. Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to parents Vince Milne and Sarah Marie Milne (née Heginbotham) and grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, a small public school run by his father. One of his teachers was H. G. Wells who taught there in 1889–90. Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor.
Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals. He was discharged on February 14, 1919.
After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour. During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of English writer P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the light-hearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers.... But I loved his stuff."
He married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born in 1920. In 1925, A. A. Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex. During World War II, A. A. Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain 'Mr. Milne' to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid and by August 1953 "he seemed very old and disenchanted".
He was 74 years old when he passed away in 1956.
“What do you say, Pooh?"Pooh opened his eyes with a jerk and said, "Extremely.""Extremely what?" asked Rabbit."What you were saying," said Pooh. "Undoubtably.”
“It is hard to be brave, when you're only a Very Small Animal.”
“I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten.”
“Habían llegado a un arroyo que serpenteaba y saltaba entre rocas. Christopher Robin comprendió inmediatamente lo peligroso que era.- Es el mejor sitio para una Emboscada -explicó.- ¿Es algo de comer? -preguntó Puh a Porquete en un susurro.- Mi querido Puh -dijo Búho con tono de superioridad-. ¿No sabes lo que es una Emboscada?- Búho -dijo Porquete mirándole con gran severidad-, el susurro de Puh era absolutamente privado y no tienes por qué...- Una Emboscada -dijo Búho-, es una especie de Sorpresa.- Hay cosas de comer que también lo son -dijo Puh.- Una Emboscada, tal y como yo estaba explicándole a Puh -dijo Porquete-, es una especie de Sorpresa.- Cuando alguien se te echa encima de repente, eso es una Emboscada -dijo Búho.- Una Emboscada es cuando alguien se te cae encima de repente, Puh - explicó Porquete.Puh, que ahora ya sabía lo que era una Emboscada, les contó cómo un tarro entero de miel se le había caído encima una mañana y cómo había necesitado seis días para chuparse toda la miel de encima y lo que le fastidió tener que desperdiciar la que le cayó en los sitios donde no llegaba para chupar.- No estaba hablando de comida -dijo Búho un poco molesto.- Yo sí -dijo Puh.”
“If there ever comes a day when we can't be together, keep me in your heart. I'll stay there forever.”
“The Dormouse looked out, and he said with a sigh:"I suppose all these people know better than I.It was silly, perhaps, but I did like the viewOf geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue).”
“Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.”
“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.”
“We'll be friends until forever, just you wait and see”
“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head,And whispered to her neighbor: "Winter is dead.”
“She also considered very seriously what she would look like in a little cottage in the middle of the forest, dressed in a melancholy gray and holding communion only with the birds and trees; a life of retirement away from the vain world; a life into which no man came. It had its attractions, but she decided that gray did not suit her.”
“His dress told her nothing, but his face told her things which she was glad to know.”
“I suppose that by this time they had finished their dressing. Roger Scurvilegs tells us nothing on such important matters; no doubt from modesty. "Next morning they rose," he says, and disappoints us of a picture of Udo brushing his hair.”
“I always did whatever I liked," she said, "but now I really can do it.”
“Mind over matter, will make the Pooh unfatter.”
“Pooh," said Rabbit kindly, "you haven't any brain." "I know," said Pooh humbly.”
“We can’t all and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.”
“They wanted to come in after the pounds", explained Pooh, "so I let them. It's the best way to write poetry, letting things come.”
“Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”
“But, of course, it isn't really Good-bye, because the Forest will always be there... and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it.”
“What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?""Well," said Pooh, "what I like best-" and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. And then he thought that being with Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have; and so, when he had thought it all out, he said, "What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying 'What about a little something?' and Me saying, 'Well, I shouldn't mind a little something, should you, Piglet,' and it being a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing.""I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I like doing best is Nothing.”
“Tut, Tut, looks like rain”
“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”
“And by and by Christopher Robin came to the end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop.”
“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
“Правописът ми е Колеблив. Добър правопис е, но се Колебае и буквите отиват на грешни места.”
“Oh Tigger, where are your manners?""I don’t know, but I bet they’re having more fun than I am.”
“No brain at all, some of them [people], only grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake, and they don't Think.”
“I might have known,” said Eeyore. “After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said ‘Bother!’. The Social Round. Always something going on.”
“Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?”
“It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily."So it is.""And freezing.""Is it?""Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”
“He respects owl, because you can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right.”
“You never can tell with bees.”
“When you do the things that you can do, you will find a way.”
“The old grey donkey, Eeyore stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought, "Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.”
“For I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me.”
“He thought how sad it was to be an Animal who had never had a bunch of violets picked for him.”
“Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully."Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever.""And he has Brain.""Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."There was a long silence."I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything.”
“To her-Hand in hand we comeChristopher Robin and I To lay this book in your lap.Say you're surprised?Say you like it?Say it's just what you wanted?Because it's yours-because we love you.”
“I'm not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.”
“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits...”
“James gave the huffle of a snail in danger. And nobody heard him at all.”
“So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was in the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... and then his shoulders ... and then-'Oh, help!' said Pooh, 'I'd better go back,' 'Oh bother!' said Pooh, 'I shall have to go on.' 'I can't do either!' said Pooh, 'Oh help and bother!”
“If people ask me,I always tell them:"Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say."If people ask me, I always answer,"Quite well, thank you, how are you today?"I always answer, I always tell them, If they ask mePolitely...BUT SOMETIMES I wish That they wouldn't”
“What day is it?” asked Pooh. “It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.“My favorite day,” said Pooh.”
“In a very little time they got to the corner of the field by the side of the pine wood where Eeyore's house wasn't any longer.'There!' said Eeyore. 'Not a stick of it left! Of course, I've still got all this snow to do what I like with. One mustn't complain.”
“On Tuesday, when it hails and snows,The feeling on me grows and growsThat hardly anybody knowsIf those are these or these are those.”
“Think it over, think it under.”
“Bother.”
“How do you spell 'love'?" - Piglet"You don't spell it...you feel it." - Pooh”