Beatrix Potter

"I remember I used to half believe and wholly play with fairies when I was a child. What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood, tempered and balanced by knowledge and common-sense..."

"Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were – Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter."

"Don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor."

"This is a Tale about a tail — a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin."

"It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is "soporific." I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then I am not a rabbit."

"Painting is an awkward thing to teach except the details of the medium. If you and your master are determined to look at nature and art in two different directions you are sure to stick."

"My mother is English, and as she was the one who read to us, my early world was A .A. Milne, Beatrix Potter, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carroll and Roald Dahl. None of them thought it necessary to protect children from darkness. On the contrary, they guided their readers right toward it. This gives one an enormous sense of being respected as a child. Not just of being trusted to handle things as they are, but to be accepted as not entirely good. To be recognized as having darkness within oneself, too. I don’t think I’ve trusted any author since who doesn’t address me with that assumption."