“I have always believed in the magic of childhood and think that if you get your life right that magic should never end. I feel that if adults cannot enjoy a children’s book properly there is something wrong with either the book or the adult reading it. This of course, is just a smart way of saying I don't want to grow up.”

“I keep saying that I had everything, but all I had was endless tomorrows.”

“I don't believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.”

“...because if you tell a lie when you are being eaten by a nearly dead queen, you are always struck dumb.”

“I died last night. Seventy years too young.”

“It is usual to speak in a playfully apologetic tone about one’s adult enjoyment of what are called ‘children’s books’. I think the convention a silly one. No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty – except, of course, books of information. The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all.”

“I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.”