“I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth of fulfilment…”

“Let's sum up... a little house, white and green or to be made so... with trees, preferably birch and spruce... a window looking seaward... on a hill. That sounds very possible... but there is one other requirement. There must be magic about it, Jane... lashings of magic... and magic houses are scarce, even on the Island. Have you any idea at all what I mean, Jane?"Jane reflected."You want to feel that the house is yours before you buy it," she said."Jane," said dad, "you are too good to be true.”

“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?”

“Leslie, after her first anguish was over, found it possible to go on with life after all, as most of us do, no matter what our particular form of torment has been. It is even possible that she enjoyed moments of it, when she was one of the gay circle in the little house of dreams.”

“But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?”

“It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said Captain Jim. "When I ponder on them seeds I don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. You couldn't hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone colour and scent, if you hadn't seen the miracle, could you?”

“I have learned to look upon each little hindrance as a jest and each great one as a foreshadowing of victory.”