190 Quotes by T.H. White

Perhaps he does not want to be friends with you until he knows what you are like. With owls, it is never easy-come-easy-go.

Pets are almost always fatal, to oneself or to them. It is the curse of possession or motherhood. Mothers ruin their children, choke them like ivy. Dog-lovers steal the souls of their dogs and lose something in exchange. There is an essay on this subject by (I think) Stella Benson called “A Firefly to Steer By.” Everybody ought to read it.

He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.

It was at the outskirts of the world that the Old Things accumulated, like driftwood round the edges of the sea. ("The Troll")

I would recommend a solo flight to all prospective suicides. It tends to make clear the issue of whether one enjoys being alive or not.

Any one war seems rooted in its antecedents.

He had conquered murder only to be faced with war. There were no laws for that.

It is so fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible.

There were thousands of brown books in leather bindings, some chained to the book-shelves and others propped against each other as if they had had too much to drink and did not really trust themselves. These gave out a smell of must and solid brownness which was most secure.