The Princess and the Goblin

People must be­lieve what they can, and those who be­lieve more must not be hard upon those who be­lieve less.

Then if you don’t know what I mean, what right have you to call it non­sense?

it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crooked­ness and withered­ness and feeble­ness and sticks and spec­tacles and rheum­at­ism and for­get­ful­ness! It is so silly! Old age has noth­ing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and cour­age and clear eyes and strong pain­less limbs.

but that is the way fear serves us: it al­ways sides with the thing we are afraid of.

Not to be be­lieved does not at all agree with prin­cesses: for a real prin­cess can­not tell a lie. So all the af­ter­noon she did not speak a word. Only when the nurse spoke to her, she answered her, for a real prin­cess is never rude—even when she does well to be of­fen­ded.

and in­deed today is very sel­dom like yes­ter­day, if people would note the dif­fer­ences—even when it rains.

There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imagination expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance.