“If I could have made the change sooner I daresay I should never have given a thought to the literary delights of Paris or London; for life in the country is the only state which has always completely satisfied me, and I had never been allowed to gratify it, even for a few weeks at a time. Now I was to know the joys of six or seven months a year among fields and woods of my own, and the childish ecstasy of that first spring outing at Mamaroneck swept away all restlessness in the deep joy of communion with the earth.”

“I believe that a good children's book should appeal to all people who have not completely lost their original joy and wonder in life. The fact is that I don't make books for children at all. I make them for that part of us, of myself and of my friends, which has never changed, which is still a child.”

“For the first time, vague doubts assaulted me, the shattering suspicion that for all pleasure and joy in life we had to pay ... I repel fear. If I had to pay I would pay, after all, the memory of ecstasy while pungisse its pain could never be erased.”

“How long have you been away from the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra."Almost seven years.""Then you have probably forgotten all about it.""Quite the contrary. Even if my country does seem to have forgotten me, I have always thought about it.”

“I loved [fairy stories] so, and my mother weighed down by grief had given up telling me them. At Nohant I found Mmes. d'Ardony's and Perrault's tales in old editions which became my chief joy for five or six years ... I've never read them since, but I could tell each tale straight through, and I don't think anything in all one's intellecutal life can be compared to these delights of imagination.”

“Philip. I have never been outside of England. I've never even been to London. Do you know what I would give for your experiences? How could you possibly think you would bore me?" He didn't answer, but there was such a look of delight in his eyes that I had to ask, "Why are you looking at me like that?" "You called me Philip. For the first time.”