Quotes from Diana Wynne Jones

Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of danger. It had to be a hoax.

He scarcely saw his parents. When Christopher was small, he was terrified that he would meet Papa out walking in the Park one day and not recognize him.

Sophie and Howl were living - somewhat quarrelsomely it must be confessed, although they were said to be happiest that way - in the moving castle again

Do you mind not being so kind and obedient? It makes me nervous.

And it's a pity too that I've no right to open your letters. I hope you don't get many, or my conscience will give me no peace.

I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.

On the other hand, it is quite a risk to spank a wizard for getting hysterical about his hair.

I'm delirious, said Howl. Spots are crawling before my eyes. Those are spiders, said Sophie. Why can't you cure yourself with a spell? Because there is no cure for a cold, Howl said dolefully.

Everyone always has to have the rational, scientific explanation for something, even if it's so obviously wrong you could scream.

Sophie listened and felt sad. Interesting things did seem to happen, but always to somebody else.

After that, he tried to go upstairs through the broom cupboard, and then the yard. This seemed to puzzle him a little. But finally he discovered the stairs, all except the bottom on, and fell up them on his face. The whole castle shook.

The demon at length fell to singing a gentle, flickering little song. It was not in any language Sophie knew - or she thought not, until she distinctly heard the word saucepan in it several times...

She stood with her nose up, sniffing delightedly. It was the delicious mildewy fragrance of old books. Hundreds of them, she saw, looking round the room. Books were lined up on shelves on all four walls, stacked on the floor, and piled on the desk, old books in leather covers mostly, although some of the ones on the floor had newer looking colored jackets.

I've got a hangover! No, you hit your head on the floor, Sophie said. Howl rose up on his hands and knees with a scramble. I can't stay, he said. I've got to rescue that fool Sophie. I'm here! Sophie shook his shoulder. But so is Mis Angorian! Get up and do something about her!

When you grow up to be an author and write books, you'll think you're making the books up, but they'll all really be true, somewhere.

You're wearing that hat? After all the magic I used to make your dress pretty? ~Howl from the movie 'Howl's Moving Castle

As often happened, Charmain began to despair of getting her mother to understand. She's not stupid, she just never lets her mind out, she thought.

By this time, half the people in High Norland were gathered in Royal Square to stare at the castle. They all watched with disbelief as the castle rose slightly into the air and glided toward the road that led southward. It was hardly more than an alley, really. It'll never fit! people said. But the castle somehow squeezed itself narrow enough to drift away along it and out of sight. The citizens of High Norland gave it a cheer as it went.

If you knew the trouble we've had because Howl will keep falling in love like this! We've had lawsuits, and suitors with swords, and mothers with rolling pins, and fathers and uncles with cudgels. And aunts. Aunts are terrible. They go for you with hat pins.

For a moment it seemed as if he was going to lose his temper too. His strange, pale eyes all but glared at Sophie. But he controlled himself and said, Now trot along indoors, you overactive old thing, and find something else to play with before I get angry. I hate getting angry.

As she turned left to the gateway, it occurred to her that swimming was only one of a very large number of things she had no idea what to do. Peter had been right to object to her ignorance. It's not that I'm lazy, she explained to Waif as they arrived in what seemed to be stables, or stupid. I've just not bothered to look round the edges of Mother's way of doing things, you see.

No I am not all right!" Chrestomanci said, after five minutes of this. "I have worldwide blisters. I need a shave. I'm tired out and I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast yesterday. Would you feel alright in my position?

And suddenly, as if her head had cleared, she was quite sure that wonderful things did indeed exist. Even if they're only in my own mind, she thought, they're there and worth fighting for. I mustn't give in.

People are wrong when they say things like, "I didn't have time to think." If you're really worried, or really miserable, those feelings come welling up around the edges of the other things you're doing, so that you are in the feelings even when you're working hard at something else.