Hugh Lofting Quotes

I make no claim to be an authority on writing or illustrating for children.

Was it the Twilight of Magic? Perhaps. But only today's. Magic could never die while the sun had the power to rise again and man had the wish to seek.

What is war?' I asked.
Oh, it's a messy, stupid business,' he said, 'Two sides wave flags and beat drums and shoot one another dead. It always begins this way, making speeches, talking about rights, and all that sort of thing.'
But what is it for? What do they get out of it?'
I don't know,' he said. 'To tell you the truth, I don't think they know themselves.

The fact that I have been successful merely means that I can write and illustrate in my own way.

Dear me, what an unsatisfactory world it was! When one did find a nice kind of life something or somebody always seemed to shove you out of it just as you were beginning to enjoy it.

Money," he said, "is a terrible nuisance. But it's nice not to have to worry.

I was thinking about people," said Polynesia." People make me sick. They think they're so wonderful. The world has been going on now for thousands of years, hasn't it? And the only thing in animal language that people have learned to understand is that when a dog wags his tail he means 'I'm glad'! It's funny isn't it? You are the very first man to talk like us. Oh, sometimes people annoy me dreadfully - such airs they put on, talking about 'the dumb animals.' Dumb! Huh! Why I knew a macaw once who could say 'Good morning' in seven different ways.

I suppose once you've been accused of being a witch, you're never really safe. People may blame all sorts of accidents and misfortunes on you.

It is a horrible thing, money. But it is also horrible to be the only one who hasn't got any. One of my chief complaints against people
has always been that they had no respect for animals. But many people have a great respect for money. Animals with bank accounts of their own will be in a position to insist upon respect.

There has always been a tendency to classify children almost as a distinct species.

Are they given in exchange for the glory of an African sunrise, for the twilight breeze whispering through the palms, for the green shade of the matted, tangled vines, for the cool, big-starred nights of the desert, for the patter of the waterfall after a hard day's hunt? What, I ask you, are they given in exchange for THESE? Why, a bare cage with iron bars; an ugly piece of dead meat thrust in to them once a day; and a crowd of fools to come and stare at them with open mouths! - No, Stubbins. Lions and tigers, the Big Hunters, should never, never be seen in zoos.