Quotes by A.A. Milne

Hallo, Pooh,” said Rabbit.“Hallo, Rabbit,” said Pooh dreamily.“Did you make that song up?”“Well, I sort of made it up,” said Pooh. “It isn’t Brain,” he went on humbly, “because You Know Why, Rabbit; but it comes to me sometimes.”“Ah!” said Rabbit, who never let things come to him, but always went and fetched them.

In the language of the day it is customary to describe a certain sort of book as “escapist” literature. As I understand it, the adjective implies, a little condescendingly, that the life therein depicted cannot be identified with the real life which the critic knows so well in W.C.1: and may even have the disastrous effect on the reader of taking him happily for a few hours out of his own real life in N.W.8. Why this should be a matter for regret I do not know; nor why realism in a novel is so much admired when realism in a picture is condemned as mere photography; nor, I might add, why drink and fornication should seem to bring the realist closer to real life than, say, golf and gardening.

One of the difficulties of thinking clearly about anything is that it is almost impossible not to form our ideas in words which have some previous association for us; with the result that our thought is already shaped along certain lines before we have begun to follow it out. Again, a word may have various meanings, and our use of it in one sense may deceive our readers (or even ourselves) into supposing that we were using it in some other sense.

VespersLittle Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,Droops on the little hands little gold head.Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.God bless Mummy. I know thats right.Wasnt it fun in the bath tonight?The colds so cold, and the hots so hot.Oh! God bless Daddy -- I quite forgot.If I open my fingers a little bit more,I can see Nannys dressing-gown on the door.Its a beautiful blue, but it hasnt a hood.Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,And pull the hood right over my head,And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,And nobody knows that Im there at all.Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.And what was the other I had to say?I said Bless Daddy, so what can it be?Oh! Now I remember. God bless Me.Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed.Droops on the little hands little gold head.Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

Friendship, said Christopher Robin, is a very comforting thing to have.

Get out of my chair, dillhole!

Nowhere can I think so happily as in a train. I am not inspired; nothing so uncomfortable as that. I am never seized with a sudden idea for a masterpiece, nor form a sudden plan for some new enterprise. My thoughts are just pleasantly reflective. I think of all the good deeds I have done, and (when these give out) of all the good deeds I am going to do. I look out of the window and say lazily to myself, “How jolly to live there”; and a little farther on, “How jolly not to live there.” I see a cow, and I wonder what it is like to be a cow, and I wonder whether the cow wonders what it is to be like me; and perhaps, by this time, we have passed on to a sheep, and I wonder if it is more fun being a sheep. My mind wanders on in a way which would annoy Pelman a good deal, but it wanders on quite happily, and the “clankety-clank” of the train adds a very soothing accompaniment. So soothing, indeed, that at any moment I can close my eyes and pass into a pleasant state of sleep.

If ever there is tomorrow when were not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if were apart... Ill always be with you.

King John was not a good man,He had his little ways.And sometimes no one spoke to him,For days and days and days.

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience - well, that comes from poor judgment.

He said it twice because he had never said it before, and it sounded funny.

Well, Ive got an idea, said Rabbit, and here it is. We take Tigger for a long explore, somewhere where hes never been, and we lose him there, and next morning we find him again, and--mark my words--hell be a different Tigger altogether. Why? said Pooh. Because hell be a Humble Tigger. Because hell be a Sad Tigger, a Melancholy Tigger, a Small and Sorry Tigger, an Oh-Rabbit-I-am-glad-to-see-you Tigger. Thats why. Will he be glad to see me and Piglet, too? Of course. Thats good, said Pooh. I should hate him to go on being Sad, said Piglet doubtfully. Tiggers never go on being Sad, explained Rabbit.

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thin

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits...

Owl, said Rabbit shortly, you and I have brains. The others have fluff. If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest--and when I say thinking I mean thinking--you and I must do it.

What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.

The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief—call it what you will—than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.

They have no imagination. A tail is just a tail to them, just a little something extra in the back.

What day is it?Its today, squeaked Piglet.My favorite day, said Pooh.

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.