The Secret Garden Quotes
"She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants."
"By the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived."
"It's the good rich earth. It's in a good humor makin' ready to grow things."
"I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England."
"If there was a grand Missus at Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under housemaids."
"There's twelve of us an' my father only gets sixteen shilling a week."
"But mother says you ought to be learnin’ your book by this time an’ you ought to have a woman to look after you, an’ she says: ‘Now, Martha, you just think how you’d feel yourself, in a big place like that, wanderin’ about all alone, an’ no mother. You do your best to cheer her up,’ she says, an’ I said I would."
"You do cheer me up," she said. "I like to hear you talk."
"What does tha’ think," she said, with a cheerful grin. "I’ve brought thee a present."
"A present!" exclaimed Mistress Mary. How could a cottage full of fourteen hungry people give anyone a present!
"For!" cried out Martha. "Does tha’ mean that they’ve not got skippin’-ropes in India, for all they’ve got elephants and tigers and camels! No wonder most of ’em’s black. This is what it’s for; just watch me."
"You just try it," urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope. "You can’t skip a hundred at first, but if you practise you’ll mount up. That’s what mother said. She says, ‘Nothin’ will do her more good than skippin’ rope. It’s th’ sensiblest toy a child can have. Let her play out in th’ fresh air skippin’ an’ it’ll stretch her legs an’ arms an’ give her some strength in ’em.’"
"Put on tha’ things and run an’ skip out o’ doors," said Martha. "Mother said I must tell you to keep out o’ doors as much as you could, even when it rains a bit, so as tha’ wrap up warm."
"Martha," she said, "they were your wages. It was your twopence really. Thank you." She said it stiffly because she was not used to thanking people or noticing that they did things for her. "Thank you," she said, and held out her hand because she did not know what else to do.
"If you scream another scream, I'll scream too - and I can scream louder than you can and I'll frighten you, I'll frighten you!"
"I have never been there once, really. I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous."
"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again."
"It's the most beautiful place. Thousands of lovely things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing or squeaking to each other."
"It wants its mother. I brought it to thee a bit hungry because I knowed tha'd like to see it feed."
"I felt the lump - I felt it. I knew I should. I shall have a hunch on my back and then I shall die."
"You have my permission to go, Roach. But, remember, this is very important."
"I can't help thinking about what it will look like."
"I'm going out in my chair this afternoon. If the fresh air agrees with me, I may go out every day."
"This is what tha's after. Tha'll get more out o' this than tha' will out o' silk velvet coats. There now."
"I wish you were my mother—as well as Dickon’s!"
"Thoughts—just mere thoughts—are as powerful as electric batteries—as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison."
"Where you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow."
"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!"
"It was the garden that did it—and Mary and Dickon and the creatures—and the Magic."
"Now, he said at the end of the story, it need not be a secret any more."
"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp.