In this life,” he went on, “you got to see what is, as you might say, and then face up to what you wish there wasn’t.

Homily would renew it at intervals when it became available upstairs, but since Aunt Sophy.

Keep your warm hearts, your gentleness, and your courage. These will do just as well as magic.

And what if it were only a story?” said Mrs. May quickly, “so long as it was a good story? Keep your sense of wonder, child, and don’t be so literal. Anything we haven’t experienced for ourselves sounds like a story. All we can ever do is sift the evidence.

Human beans are for Borrowers – like bread’s for butter!

She learned a lot and some of the things she learned were hard to accept. She was made to realize once and for all that this earth on which they lived turning about in space did not revolve, as she had believed, for the sake of little people. “Nor for big people either,” she reminded the boy when she saw his secret smile.

I’m no lady; I’m a member of Congress, and I’ll proceed on that basis.

Stories never really end. They can go on and on and on. It’s just that sometimes, at a certain point, one stops telling them.

Misfortunes make us wise.

The child is right," she announced firmly. Arrietty's eyes grew big. "Oh, no-" she began. It shocked her to be right. Parents were right, not children. Children could say anything, Arrietty knew, and enjoy saying it-knowing always they were safe and wrong.