What the Dormouse Said Read online

  —Little Town on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1941

  If some things were different, other things would be otherwise.

  —The Griffin and the Minor Canon, Frank R. Stockton, 1885

  “Life is not peaceful,” said Snufkin, contentedly.

  —Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson, 1948

  It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.

  —Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J. K. Rowling, 1997

  Eating Habits

  You have to eat oatmeal or you’ll dry up Anybody knows that

  —Eloise, Kay Thompson, 1955

  Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,

  That is the finest of suppers, I think;

  When I’m grown up and can have what I please

  I think I shall always insist upon these.

  —“Animal Crackers,” Chimneysmoke, Christopher Morley, 1921

  “Would it offend the villagers?” the Dragon asked his Mother, “if I ate their daughters?” . . .

  “I believe it would,” said his Mother, “so don’t,” and the Dragon didn’t.

  —The Dragon of Og, Rumer Godden, 1981

  “It’s very provoking,” Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, “to be called an egg—very!”

  —Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, 1872

  “Well,” said Mother Goat, “it’s all right to eat like a goat, but you shouldn’t eat like a pig.”

  —Gregory, the Terrible Eater, Mitchell Sharmat, 1980

  —If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Laura Joffe Numeroff, 1985

  The Vulture eats between his meals,

  And that’s the reason why

  He very, very rarely feels

  As well as you and I.

  —“The Vulture,” Cautionary Verses, Hilaire Belloc, 1907

  She thought that maybe—just maybe—Western Civilization was in a decline because people did not take time to take tea at four o’clock.

  —The View from Saturday, E. L. Konigsburg, 1996

  Nowhere do men so display lack of good breeding and culture as in dining.

  —Freckles, Gene Stratton Porter, 1904

  DO NOT CATAPULT THE CARROTS!

  DO NOT JUGGLE GOBS OF FAT!

  DO NOT DROP THE MASHED POTATOES

  ON THE GERBIL OR THE CAT!

  —“My Mother Says I’m Sickening,” The New Kid on the Block, Jack Prelutsky, 1984

  Her mama said, “Don’t eat with your fingers.”

  “OK,” said Ridiculous Rose,

  So she ate with her toes!

  —“Ridiculous Rose,” Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein, 1974

  Nature

  Every night the river sings a new song.

  —The Land of Right Up and Down, Eva-Lis Wuorio, 1964

  Who bends a knee where violets grow

  A hundred secret things shall know.

  —“A Charm for Spring Flowers,” Poems, Rachel Field, 1957

  —The Trumpet of the Swan, E. B. White, 1970

  “What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.”

  —The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943

  —A Tree Is Nice, Janice May Udry, 1956

  Surely it is cruel to cut down a very fine tree! Each dull, dead thud of the axe hurts the little green fairy that lives in its heart.

  —The Fairy Caravan, Beatrix Potter, 1929

  Maybe it sounds peculiar to say that dirt is clean, but I think new-plowed dirt’s the cleanest thing I know of.

  —Miss Charity Comes to Stay, Alberta Wilson Constant, 1959

  If a flower blooms once, it goes on blooming somewhere forever. It blooms on for whoever has seen it blooming.

  —Sounder, William H. Armstrong, 1969

  If one had to live in town, Miss Hickory had always said, take a house under a lilac bush.

  —Miss Hickory, Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, 1946

  —Sarah, Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan, 1985

  The night wind with the big dark curves of the night sky in it, the night wind gets inside of me and understands all my secrets.

  —“The White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy,” Rootabaga Stories, Carl Sandburg, 1922

  Sadness

  Tears may be the beginning, but they should not be the end of things.

  —“The Goldfish,” The Little Bookroom, Eleanor Farjeon, 1956

  More marvellous than anything is the suffering of men and women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery.

  —“The Happy Prince,” The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Oscar Wilde, 1888

  —The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1943

  War ain’t nothing but wickedness, and them that live to come home will have the mark of the beast upon them.

  —The Perilous Road, William O. Steele, 1958

  Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

  —Black Misery, Langston Hughes, 1969

  It’s not easy to learn to whistle if there’s no one to show you how.

  —King Matt the First, Janusz Korczak, 1923

  When life’s at its darkest and everything’s black,

  I don’t want my friends to come patting my back.

  I scorn consolation, can’t they let me alone?

  I just want to snivel, sob, bellow, and groan.

  —“I Feel Awful,” The Collected Poems of Freddy the Pig, Walter R. Brooks, 1953

  What is the opposite of two?

  A lonely me, a lonely you.

  —Opposites, Richard Wilbur, 1973

  What I think is that dying isn’t the most terrible thing. The most terrible thing is to die alone and without love.

  —The Broccoli Tapes, Jan Slepian, 1988

  What do girls do who haven’t any mothers to help them through their troubles?

  —Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, 1868

  The trouble isn’t making poems, the trouble’s finding somebody that will listen to them.

  —The Bat-Poet, Randall Jarrell, 1963

  Cruelty cannot stop the earth’s heart from beating.

  —To Be a Drum, Evelyn Coleman, 1998

  People are ashamed of being unhappy.

  —“What Do Fish Have to Do with Anything?” What Do Fish Have to Do with Anything? and Other Stories, Avi, 1997

  Hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up.

  —Out of the Dust, Karen Hesse, 1997

  The same way it feels better after you cry,

  A sad thing gets less sad as time passes by.

  —Bob and Jack: A Boy and His Yak, Jeff Moss, 1992

  Goodness

  And perhaps there is a kind of magic about being always, steadily, reliably very good.

  —Nobody Stole the Pie, Sonia Levitin, 1980

  The reason most people are bad is because they do not try to be good.

  —The Emerald City of Oz, L. Frank Baum, 1910

  If a thing is right, it can be done, and if it is wrong, it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.

  —Black Beauty, Anna Sewell, 1877

  When you have done a great many good things, you forget to speak of them. . . . It is those who do very little who must talk of it.

  —Miracles on Maple Hill, Virginia Sorensen, 1956

  Moreover, people told they are generous and open-minded often discover that they really are, so that flattery of the right kind . . . does nothing but good.

  —Miss Bianca, Margery Sharp, 1962

  Let us not worry about the future. Those who do what is right are always rewarded.

  —The Enchanted Forest, Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, 1974

  —“The Turnip,” Tales Told Again, Walter de la Mare, 1927

  You saved me once, and what is given is always returned. We are in this world to help one another.

 
; —The Adventures of Pinocchio, C. Collodi, 1883

  Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.

  —The Water-Babies, Charles Kingsley, 1863

  You must be careful! Treat them carefully! They’re people.

  —The Indian in the Cupboard, Lynne Reid Banks, 1980

  Let nibble who needs.

  —Miss Bianca, Margery Sharp, 1962

  Tía Rosa didn’t want her kindness returned. She wanted it passed on.

  —A Gift for Tía Rosa, Karen T. Taha, 1986

  More Practical Musings

  “What time will dinner be tonight?” said Frances.

  “Half past six,” said Mother.

  “Then I will have plenty of time to run away after dinner,” said Frances.

  —A Baby Sister for Frances, Russell Hoban, 1964

  If you have to dry the dishes . . .

  And you drop one on the floor—

  Maybe they won’t let you

  Dry the dishes anymore.

  —“How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes,” A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein, 1981

  It is customary to write in Latin when a person doesn’t know what he’s talking about and doesn’t want others to find out.

  —King Matt the First, Janusz Korczak, 1923

  Music is very nice for a party because it gives you time to eat your fill without having to make conversation.

  —The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden, 1960

  It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.

  —Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery, 1908

  “I never knew words could be so confusing,” Milo said. . . .

  “Only when you use a lot to say a little,” answered Tock.

  —The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster, 1961

  The Dormouse sulkily remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.”

  —Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865

  Sometimes if you hit a machine a couple of times you can get it going again.

  —Freaky Friday, Mary Rodgers, 1972

  There just isn’t a whole lot you can say while waiting to get mugged, so I kept my mouth shut.

  —The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton, 1967

  One doesn’t contradict a hungry tiger.

  —My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett, 1948

  You must not hop on Pop.

  —Hop on Pop, Dr. Seuss, 1963

  I put a large cabbage leaf on my head

  when I have a headache

  It makes a very good hat

  —Eloise, Kay Thompson, 1955

  “The secret, kid,” said the seal, bending toward him and speaking behind his flipper, “is to have a good compass and a following wind.”

  —Sid Seal, Houseman, Will Watkins, 1989

  I’ve learned what a nuisance bravery can be,

  So a coward’s life is the life for me.

  —Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight, Ogden Nash, 1961

  An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you

  Ef you

  Don’t

  Watch

  Out!

  —“Little Orphant Annie,” Rhymes of Childhood, James Whitcomb Riley, 1891

  Greed, Envy, Pride, and Sloth

  There must be more to life than having everything!

  —Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must Be More to Life, Maurice Sendak, 1967

  If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

  —The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937

  Conceit spoils the finest genius . . . and the great charm of all power is modesty.

  —Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, 1868

  If you go around thinking you’re being cheated, life becomes very unpleasant.

  —Bambi’s Children, Felix Salten, 1939

  And envy and pride, like weeds, kept growing higher and higher in her heart, so that day and night she had no peace.

  —“Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs,” The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm, Lore Segal, 1973

  Pride comes before a fall.

  —“The Eagle and the Cocks,” Aesop’s Fables

  —Twenty-One Balloons, William Péne du Bois, 1947

  You can pay too high for a bit of soft living.

  —The Borrowers Aloft, Mary Norton, 1961

  —“How the Camel Got His Hump,” Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling, 1902

  Fiddlesticks. . . . This prestige you talk about seems to me something you have to have when you’ve nothing else.

  —Willie Without, Margaret Moore, 1951

  “O, give me back my songs,” cried he,

  “And sleep, that used so sweet to be,

  And take the money, every pound!”

  —“The Cobbler and the Financier,” Fables, Jean de La Fontaine, 1694

  Fate has decreed that all lazy boys who come to hate books and schools and teachers and spend all their days with toys and games must sooner or later turn into donkeys.

  —The Adventures of Pinocchio, C. Collodi, 1883

  Those people are earthbound. They heap too many goods. They have not learned the trail of beauty.

  —Waterless Mountain, Laura Adams Armer, 1931

  Royalty . . . Poyalty!

  —Colette and the Princess, Louis Slobodkin, 1965

  I know, up on top you are seeing great sights,

  But down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.

  —“Yertle the Turtle,” Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, Dr. Seuss, 1958

  You cannot be good and a glutton both.

  —Pleasant Fieldmouse, JanWahl, 1964

  Shirking responsibilities is the curse of our modern life—the secret of all the unrest and discontent that is seething in the world.

  —Anne’s House of Dreams, L. M. Montgomery, 1917

  O foolish creatures that destroy

  Themselves for transitory joy.

  —“The Flies and the Honey Pot,” Aesop’s Fables

  Songs and Stories

  Will you come with me, sweet Reader? I thank you. Give me your hand.

  —The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle, 1883

  The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.

  —Crow and Weasel, Barry Lopez, 1990

  “The time has come,” the Walrus said,

  “To talk of many things:

  Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—

  Of cabbages—and kings.”

  —Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, 1872

  When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren’t told or books weren’t written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day.

  —“Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus,” Naftali the Storyteller and His Horse, Sus, Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1973

  The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same.

  —Number the Stars, Lois Lowry, 1989

  His heart will get heavy when his songs are all gone.

  —“How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country,” Rootabaga Stories, Carl Sandburg, 1922

  —Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic, Betty MacDonald, 1949

  —Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl, 1964

  Things are not untrue just because they never happened.

  —Hare’s Choice, Dennis Hamley, 1988

  And in Bible-story journeys, ain’t no journey hopeless. Everybody finds what they suppose to find.

  —Sounder, William H. Armstrong, 1969

  A poet friend of mine told me that his poems know far more than he does, and if he listens to them, they teach him.

  —A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L’Engle, 1980

/>   All his thinking could not make him understand, but his singing heart could.

  —Waterless Mountain, Laura Adams Armer, 1931

  “What is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”

  —Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865

  “We are going to be introduced to Mr. Dickens,” he said.

  “I thought he was dead!” exclaimed Mrs. Peterkin, trembling.

  “Authors live forever!” said Agamemnon in her ear.

  —The Peterkin Papers, Lucretia P. Hale, 1880

  Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

  —The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1884

  Everybody walks in the street, more or less straight down the middle, and if a car comes while somebody’s having a good conversation or telling a good story, the car has to wait till the story finishes before people will move out of the way. Stories are important here, and cars aren’t.