A.A. Milne
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.
“It's not much of a tail, but I'm sort of attached to it.”
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
“My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.”
“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
“A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards.”
“TTFN Ta Ta For Now!”
“Friendship," said Christopher Robin, "is a very comforting thing to have.”
“Pay attention to where you are going because without meaning you might get nowhere.”
“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”
“I used to believe in forever, but forever's too good to be true”
“No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature.”
“A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.”
“One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.”
“[A] quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business."(The Record Lie)”
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't.”
“Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would, I'd never leave.”
“Some have brains, and some haven't, ... and there it is.”
“But Piglet is so small that he slips into a pocket, where it is very comfortable to feel him when you are not quite sure whether twice seven is twelve or twenty-two.”
“Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”
“Think, think, think.”
“Some people care too much. I think it's called love.”
“Organization is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it’s not all mixed up.”
“But it isn't easy,' said Pooh. 'Because Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.”
“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
“Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.”
“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”
“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.”
“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. A second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. A first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.”
“Ik ben echt blij," zei Knorretje tevreden, "dat ik je iets heb gegeven om in een handig potje te bewaren.”
“Knorretje zei: "Als je begrijpt wat ik bedoel, Poeh" en Poeh zei: "Zo denk ik er ook over, Knor" en Knorretje zei: "Maar aan de andere kant, moet je wel bedenken" en Poeh zei: "Zo is het Knor, daar had ik even niet aan gedacht.”
“What I like doing best is Nothing.""How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time."Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it.It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.""Oh!" said Pooh.”
“One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can't criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don't be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worthy: I don't know, But it is you who are on trial.”
“And that, said John, is that.”
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
“If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”
“That's right," said Eeyore. "Sing. Umty-tiddly, umty-too. Here we go gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself.""I am," said Pooh.”
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?""What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?""I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.”
“I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.”
“When stuck in the river, it is best to dive and swim to the bank yourself before someone drops a large stone on your chest in an attempt to hoosh you there.”
“Lots of people talk to animals...Not very many listen though...that's the problem.”
“I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit."No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way.”
“Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”
“What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.”
“Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.”
“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”
“To the uneducated an A is just three sticks.”
“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered."Yes, Piglet?""Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you.”