"The Wind in the Willows Quotes

The beauty of this book lies in its language.  Miriam says it's a great book to snooze to while Mom reads.


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.


(The water rat of the river)  It's brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing.  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.


.....and at last one morning the diffident and delaying dog rose stepped delicately on the stage and one knew, as if string music had announced it in stately chords that strayed into a gavotte, that June at last was here.


'People come---they stay for a while, they flourish, they build, and they go.  It is their way.  But we remain.  There were badgers here, I've been told, long before that same city ever came to be.  And now there are badgers here again.  We are an enduring lot, and we may move out for a time, but we wait, and are patient, and back we come.  And so it will ever be.'


'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.  But I fancy you know something about them yourself by this time.'


....simultaneously they turned and made swiftly for home, for firelight and the familiar things it played on, for the voice, sounding cheerily outside their window, of the river that they knew and trusted in all its moods, that never made them afraid with any amazement.


....they found a beaten track that made walking a lighter business, and responded moreover, to that small inquiring something which all animals carry inside them, saying unmistakably, 'Yes, quite right; THIS leads home!'


.....had each that happy grace which is the last thing the skilled actor shall capture---the natural grace which goes with perfect unconsciousness of observation.


till poor Mole at last gave up the struggle, and cried freely and helplessly and openly now that he knew it was all over and he had lost what he could hardly be said to have found.


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.


At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces----meadows widespread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous.  Their old haunts greeted them again in other raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they would be recognized again under it.


(The swallows talking of their impending migration south) 'In due time,' said the third, 'we shall be home-sick once more for quiet water lilies swaying on the surface of an old English stream.  But today all that seems pale and thin and very far away.  Just now our blood dances to other music.'


He seemed tired, and the Rat let him rest unquestioned, understanding something of what was in his thoughts; knowing, too, the value all animals attach at times to mere silent companionship, when the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks time.


...the road itself, when he reached it, in that loneliness that was everywhere, seemed, like a stray dog, to be looking anxiously for company.


Secrets had an immense attraction for 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.


...safe in Toad's ancestral home, won back by matchless valour, consummate strategy, and a proper handling of sticks.


'Don't pretend to be stupider than you really are,' replied the Badger, crossly.


The Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go.  Indeed, much that he related  belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of  ten-minutes-afterwards.  Those are always the best and raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?