Quotes from Alison Uttley

That evening the men worked late to finish and I raked the fields in the dusk with Alison, stopping to pick the dog-roses which were like white stars in the hedges, then hastening after my sister. Dumbledores boomed as they struck our dresses, a hedgehog walked in the path, and we could hear the barking of a fox in the wood. Night

I looked at myself in the little mirror. My cheeks were flaming-red, my arms were sunburnt, but another sun had warmed them. The hot passions of those days flowed in my veins, I felt transfigured, old, wise, knowing a thousand things of which I had been barely conscious. Strangely moved by the knowledge that I was separated from that life by only the thinnest vapour, I went downstairs, my little watch ticking the minutes, awakened from its sleep.

She wouldn't be sad, she didn't care if she were ugly; she had accepted her wistful elfin face as she accepted the birds and trees, as something which was part of the earth.

A friendly thing a shadow is, neither ugly nor unkind, a fantastic dancing friend.

Early in the morning a heavy dew lay on the ground, and the horses and cattle left tracks in the spangled grass, and hollow imprints where they had slept. The world was exquisite, delicate as a mother-of-pearl shell.

The smooth beeches held up their glass-clear leaves to the sun, and the light strained through them like water through a sieve.

When Susan went to the calf place, there in a nest of hay in the stall, lay a small, damp, red, curly-haired little calf, with shapely head and white face and body like a fawn's.

I do find life difficult at times … and I behave childishly too, do foolish things, unworthy … I don't think one can have great imagination and great wisdom. Can one?