Quotes from Diana Wynne Jones

In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.

My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.

I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.

Take it from me, Fate doesn't care most of the time.

So you were going to rescue the Prince! Why did you pretend to run away? To deceive the Witch?" "Not likely! I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it!

I've got a hangover." "No, you hit your head on the floor." "I can't stay. I've got to rescue that fool Sophie.

She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.

By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. "I'll make some hot buttered toast," she said. "Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy??" Howl asked. "Make toast!

I make that four horses and ten men just to get rid of one old woman. What did you do to the King?

That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.

To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.

I can't abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!

Things are going round and round in my head--or maybe my head is going round and round in things.

It seems to me that humour is everybody's way of keeping sane and standing off from the situations so that they can see it intellectually, as well as emotionally, and I don't know whether you've noticed, but if somebody tells a joke, it's nearly always a mini fantasy.

This is ridiculous, I mean, wholly ridiculous. It never did any child any harm to have something that was a tiny bit above them anyway, and I claim that anyone who can follow Doctor Who can follow absolutely anything.

Fantasy for me as a kid was real, and I had a fantasy about what life was, whether it was sort of wicked and dire, or wholly normal, or whatever. Anything really close to home is not, it seems to me, what a good book should be about.

Actually, in the wild, we'd be the only person that we wouldn't recognize, if you think about it.

All these things that crib and cab in your brain, in your imagination, are in fact things that might well in later life drive you insane.

Learn to drive?" "Never," said Quentin. "My mission in life is to be a passenger.

It's a lucky child that knows that they're a genius, unaimed and all that.

I'm beginning to think I've led a much too sheltered life.

It does not seem to me that I have the right to foist a story on people, most of whom are children who should be learning all the time, unless I am learning from it too.

SAGE. A wise and Holy man who died a long time ago. No one modern qualifies.

That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.