Top 100 Kenneth Grahame Quotes
#1. Banquets are always pleasant things, consisting mostly, as they do, of eating and drinking; but the specially nice thing about a banquet is, that it comes when something's over, and there's nothing more to worry about, and to-morrow seems a long way off.
Kenneth Grahame
#2. Such a rich chapter it had been, when one came to look back on it all! With illustrations so numerous and so very highly coloured!
Kenneth Grahame
#3. Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the basket. It never is.
Kenneth Grahame
#4. They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this time their intoxicating babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, and lizard-haunted walls.
Kenneth Grahame
#6. He had got down to the bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple.
Kenneth Grahame
#7. For my life, I confess to you, feels to me today somewhat narrow and circumscribed.
Kenneth Grahame
#8. Beyond the Wild Wood comes the wild world,"said the Rat."And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or to me. I've never been there, and I'm never going' nor you either, if you've got any sense at all.
Kenneth Grahame
#9. Weasels
and stoats
and foxes
and so on. They're all right in a way
I'm very good friends with them
pass the time of day when we meet, and all that
but they break out sometimes, there's no denying it, and then
well, you can't really trust them, and that's the fact.
Kenneth Grahame
#10. Dream-canals and heard a phantom song pealing high between vaporous grey wave-lapped walls.
Kenneth Grahame
#11. This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,' whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. 'Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely
Kenneth Grahame
#12. Toad's ancestral home, won back by matchless valour, consummate strategy, and a proper handling of sticks.
Kenneth Grahame
#13. Here am I, footsore and hungry, tramping away from it, tramping southward, following the old call, back to the old life, THE life which is mine and which will not let me go.
Kenneth Grahame
#14. Well, well, perhaps I am a bit of a talker. A popular fellow such as I am
my friends get round me
we chaff, we sparkle, we tell witty stories
and somehow my tongue gets wagging. I have the gift of conversation. I've been told I ought to have a salon, whatever that may be.
Kenneth Grahame
#15. and a barge that sailed into the banqueting-hall with his week's washing, just as he was giving a dinner-party; and he was
Kenneth Grahame
#16. Hooray!' he cried, jumping up on seeing them, 'this is splendid!
Kenneth Grahame
#17. Rat was talking so seriously, he kept saying to himself mutinously, 'But it WAS fun, though! Awful fun!' and making strange suppressed noises inside him, k-i-ck-ck-ck, and poop-p-p, and other sounds resembling stifled snorts, or
Kenneth Grahame
#18. It is the restrictions placed on vice by our social code which makes its pursuit so peculiarly agreeable.
Kenneth Grahame
#19. Secrets had an immense attraction to him, because he never could keep one, and he enjoyed the sort of unhallowed thrill he experienced when he went and told another animal, after having faithfully promised not to.
Kenneth Grahame
#20. This is the end of everything' (he said), 'at least it is the end of the career of Toad, which is the same thing; the popular
Kenneth Grahame
#21. The Rat, meanwhile, was busy examining the label on one of the beer-bottles. "I perceive this to be Old Burton," he remarked approvingly. "Sensible Mole! The very thing! Now we shall be able to mull some ale. Get the things ready, Mole, while I draw the corks."
Kenneth Grahame
#22. "Glorious, stirring sight!" murmured Toad ... "The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today - in next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped- always somebody else's horizons! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!"
Kenneth Grahame
#23. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.
Kenneth Grahame
#24. you look down flights of stone steps, overhung by great pink tufts of valerian and
Kenneth Grahame
#25. The strongest human instinct is to impart information, the second strongest is to resist it.
Kenneth Grahame
#26. Children are the only people who accept a mood of wonderment, who are ready to welcome a perfect miracle at any hour of the day or night. Only a child can entertain an angel unawares, or to meet Sir Launcelot in shining armor on a moonlit road.
Kenneth Grahame
#27. O what a flowery track lies spread before me, henceforth! What dust clouds shall spring up behind me as I speed on my reckless way! What carts I shall fling carelessly into the ditch in the wake of my magnificent onset!
Kenneth Grahame
#28. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.
Kenneth Grahame
#29. The clever men at Oxford, know all that there is to be knowed. But they none of them know one half as much, as intelligent Mr. Toad.
Kenneth Grahame
#30. while a picked body of Toads, known at the Die-hards, or the Death-or-Glory Toads, will storm the orchard and carry everything before
Kenneth Grahame
#31. Toad talked big about all he was going to do in the days to come, while stars grew fuller and larger all around them, and a yellow moon, appearing suddenly and silently from nowhere in particular, came to keep them company and listen to their talk.
Kenneth Grahame
#32. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
Kenneth Grahame
#33. One member of the company was still awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the knight for whom the ladies waited at the window,
Kenneth Grahame
#34. Like a black pirate flag on the blue ocean of air, a hawk hung ominous; then, plummet-wise, dropped to the hedgerow, whence there rose, thin and shrill, a piteous voice of squealing. By
Kenneth Grahame
#35. The Mole had long wanted to make the I acquaintance of the Badger. He seemed, by all accounts, to be such an important personage and, though rarely visible, to make his unseen influence felt by everybody about the place.
Kenneth Grahame
#36. And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as children and long afterwards, we are never allowed to guess how the absorbing pursuit of the moment will appear, not only to others, but to ourselves, a very short time hence.
Kenneth Grahame
#37. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.
Kenneth Grahame
#38. Hauled up our wine-casks, and hove them overboard, tied one to the other by a long line. Then the crew took to the boats and rowed shorewards, singing as they went, and drawing after them the long bobbing procession of casks, like
Kenneth Grahame
#39. The river , corrected the Rat, It's my world ... What it hasn't got is not worth having ...
Kenneth Grahame
#40. Everything seems asleep, and yet going on all the time. It is a goodly life that you lead, friend; no doubt the best in the world, if only you are strong enough to lead it!
Kenneth Grahame
#41. The Wild Wood is pretty well populated by now; with all the usual lot, good, bad, and indifferent - I name no names. It takes all sorts to make a world.
Kenneth Grahame
#42. Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,' said the Rat. 'And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or me.
Kenneth Grahame
#43. After luncheon, accordingly, when the other two had settled themselves into the chimney-corner and had started a heated argument on the subject of EELS,
Kenneth Grahame
#44. No, I can't stop for sonnets; my mother is sitting up. I'll look you up tomorrow, sometime or other, and do for goodness' sake try and realise that you're a pestilential scourge, or your find yourself in a most awful fix. Good-night!
Kenneth Grahame
#45. The rich meadow-grass seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading.
Kenneth Grahame
#47. Thank you kindly, dear Mole, for all your pains and trouble tonight, and especially for your cleverness this morning!' The
Kenneth Grahame
#48. All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!
Ducks' tails, drakes' tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!
Kenneth Grahame
#49. There seemed to be no end to this wood, and no beginning, and no difference in it, and, worse of all, no way out
Kenneth Grahame
#50. The motor-car went Poop-poop-poop, As it raced along the road. Who was it steered it into a pond? Ingenious Mr. Toad!
Kenneth Grahame
#51. Animals arrived, liked the look of the place, took up their quarters, settled down, spread, and flourished. They didn't bother themselves about the past - they never do; they're too busy.
Kenneth Grahame
#52. An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in the intoxicated fashion affected by young bloods of May-flies seeing life.
Kenneth Grahame
#53. Come along inside ... We'll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place.
Kenneth Grahame
#54. The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at the shoulders; his paws were thin and long, his eyes much wrinkled at the corners, and he wore small gold ear rings in his neatly-set well-shaped ears. His
Kenneth Grahame
#55. Sometimes, in the course of long summer evenings, the friends would take a stroll together in the Wild Wood, now successfully tamed so far as they were concerned; and it was pleasing to see how respectfully they were greeted by the inhabitants, and how
Kenneth Grahame
#56. Independence is all very well, but we animals never allow our friends to make fools of themselves beyond a certain limit; and that limit you've reached.
Kenneth Grahame
#57. Stopped rowing as the liquid run of that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed him utterly.
Kenneth Grahame
#58. ...my wants are few, and at any rate I had peace and quietness and wasn't always being asked to come along and do something. And I've got such an active mind - always occupied, I assure you!
Kenneth Grahame
#59. When it began to grow dark, the Rat, with an air of excitement and mystery, summoned them back into the parlour, stood each of them up alongside of his little heap, and proceeded to dress them up for the coming expedition.
Kenneth Grahame
#60. As a rule, indeed, grown-up people are fairly correct on matters of fact; it is in the higher gift of imagination that they are so sadly to seek.
Kenneth Grahame
#61. Thence, even as he gazed, a tiny column of smoke rose straight up into the still air.
Kenneth Grahame
#62. Today, to him gazing south with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; today, the unseen was everything. the unknown the only real fact of life.
Kenneth Grahame
#63. Then [Badger] fetched them dressing-gowns and slippers, and himself bathed the Mole's shin with warm water and mended the cut with sticking-plaster till the whole thing was just as good as new, if not better.
Kenneth Grahame
#64. It's never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late he's always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!
Kenneth Grahame
#65. Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, Those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way.
Kenneth Grahame
#66. White villas glittered against the olive woods! What quiet harbours, thronged with gallant shipping bound for purple islands of wine and spice, islands set low in languorous waters!
Kenneth Grahame
#67. Monkeys who very sensibly refrain from speech, lest they should be set to earn their livings.
Kenneth Grahame
#68. And let each one of the crowd try and shout it very loud, In honour of an animal of whom you're justly proud, For it's Toad's - great - day!
Kenneth Grahame
#69. But the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.
Kenneth Grahame
#70. As one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us.
Kenneth Grahame
#71. Absorbed in the new scents, the sounds, and the sunlight ...
Kenneth Grahame
#72. SONG. . . . BY TOAD. (Composed by himself.) OTHER COMPOSITIONS. BY TOAD will be sung in the course of the evening by the. . . COMPOSER.
Kenneth Grahame
#73. Rat sculled gently homewards in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself,
Kenneth Grahame
#74. The River ... It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we've had together!
Kenneth Grahame
#75. Take the adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! 'Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of your old life and into the new!
Kenneth Grahame
#76. Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
Kenneth Grahame
#77. Well, very long ago, on the spot where the Wild Wood waves now, before ever it had planted itself and grown up to what it now is, there was a city - a city of people, you know.
Kenneth Grahame
#78. Good, bad, and indifferent - It takes all sorts to make a world.
Kenneth Grahame
#79. No animal, according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter.
Kenneth Grahame
#80. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing.
Kenneth Grahame
#81. There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.
Kenneth Grahame
#82. Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours.
Kenneth Grahame
#83. Only to be sent tealess to bed seemed infinite mercy to him. Officially tealess, that is; for, as was usual after such escapades, a sympathetic housemaid, coming delicately by backstairs, stayed him with chunks of cold pudding and condolence, till his small skin was tight as any drum.
Kenneth Grahame
#84. The Mole recollected that animal-etiquette forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one's friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.
Kenneth Grahame
#85. Neither had any desire for talk; the glow and glory of existing on this perfect morning were satisfaction full and sufficient
Kenneth Grahame
#86. Coasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming in an atmosphere of amber, rose, and aquamarine; we lay in wide land-locked harbours, we roamed through ancient and noble cities,
Kenneth Grahame
#87. Hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves and their secrets pathetically,
Kenneth Grahame
#88. Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island.
Kenneth Grahame
#89. A careful inspection showed them that, even if they succeeded in righting it by themselves, the cart would travel no longer. The axles were in a hopeless state, and the missing wheel was shattered into pieces.
Kenneth Grahame
#90. Presently I somehow found myself singing. The words were mere nonsense- irresponsible babble ... Humanity would have rejected it with scorn. Nature, everywhere singing in the same key, recognized and accepted it without a flicker of dissent.
Kenneth Grahame
#91. Supper was finished at last, and each animal felt that his skin was now as tight as was decently safe.
Kenneth Grahame
#92. The past was like a bad dream; the future was all happy holiday as I moved Southwards week by week, easily, lazily, lingering as long as I dared, but always heeding the call!
Kenneth Grahame
#93. The whole wood seemed running now, running hard, hunting, chasing, closing in round something or - somebody? In panic, he began to run too, aimlessly, he knew not whither.
Kenneth Grahame
#94. They told me that Billy would never come back any more, and I stared out of the window at the sun which came back, right enough, every day, and their news conveyed nothing whatever to me.
Kenneth Grahame
#96. It'll be all right, my fine fellow," said the Otter. "I'm coming along with you, and I know every path blindfold; and if there's a head that needs to be punched, you can confidently rely upon me to punch it.
Kenneth Grahame
#97. Don't, for goodness' sake, keep on saying 'Don't'; I hear so much of it, and it's monotonous, and makes me tired.
Kenneth Grahame
#98. Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!
Kenneth Grahame
#99. Mole in the darkness, making him tingle through and through with its very familiar appeal, even while yet he could not clearly remember what it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current,
Kenneth Grahame
#100. The stoats are on guard, at every point, and they make the best sentinels in the world.
Kenneth Grahame
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