Quotes · verified word for word in the text
The Secret Garden quotes
13 quotes from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Source: Project Gutenberg e-text #113 (public domain in the USA), the text this site’s reader shows. Each quote is copied exactly from that text and links to its passage in the reader; when this page was built, every quote was checked word for word against the reader’s text.
At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.
“Where you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow.”
— Spoken by a character · XXVII. IN THE GARDEN
“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.”
— Spoken by a character · XXIII. MAGIC
I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us—like electricity and horses and steam.
— Spoken by a character · XXIII. MAGIC
And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.
“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?”
— Spoken by a character · XII. “MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?”
Mother says as th’ two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way—or always to have it.
— Martha · XVIII. “THA’ MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME”
Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off—and they are nearly always doing it.
It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.
“The rain is as contrary as I ever was,” she said. “It came because it knew I did not want it.”
— Spoken by a character · XIII. “I AM COLIN”
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like? You don’t see it in rooms if you are ill.”
— Spoken by a character · XIII. “I AM COLIN”
There’s naught as nice as th’ smell o’ good clean earth, except th’ smell o’ fresh growin’ things when th’ rain falls on ’em.
— Spoken by a character · XI. THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH
Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow.