Diana Wynne Jones quotes:

But Sophie and Howl were holding one another's hand and smiling and smiling, quite unable to stop. "Don't bother me know," said Howl. "I only did it for the money." "Liar!"said Sophie. "I said," Michael said, "that Calcifer's come back!" That did get Howl's attention and Sophie's too.

If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.

Theseus made unscrupulous use of Ariadne (whom he left on an island where Bacchus later found her-I always think that really meant she took to drink, poor girl).

By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. "I'll make some hot buttered toast," she said. "Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy??" Howl asked. "Make toast!

Calcifer," Sophie said, "I shall have to break your contract. Will it kill you?" "It would if anyone else broke it," Calcifer said hoarsely. "That's why I asked you to do it.

You're wearing that hat? After all the magic I used to make your dress pretty?" ~Howl from the movie 'Howl's Moving Castle

I've got a hangover." "No, you hit your head on the floor." "I can't stay. I've got to rescue that fool Sophie.

Sophie said a bad word. In the dim light she had stubbed her toe on one of the many dusty bricks piled around the place. Naughty-naughty" Twinkle said. Oh shut up!" Sophie said , standing on one leg to hold her toe. "Why don't you grow up?

SAGE. A wise and Holy man who died a long time ago. No one modern qualifies.

Alas, poor Yorick!" he said. "She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.

He picked up the skull and knocked an onion ring out of its eye socketI see Sophie has been busy again. Couldn't you have restrained her, my friend?" The skull yattered its teeth at him. Howl put it down rather hastily."

I think we ought to live happily ever after.

Wizard Howl," said Wizard Suliman. "I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn't dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.

A garden should be natural-seeming, with wild sections, including a large area of bluebells.

Go to bed, you fool," Calcifer said sleepily. "You're drunk." "Who, me?" said Howl. "I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober." He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him.

Can't you treat yourself with a bit more consideration?' 'Why should I?' Mordion said, hugging the duvet round himself. 'Because you're a person, of course!' Ann snapped at him. 'One person ought to treat another person properly even if the person's himself!

What a strange family you are! Is your name Lettie too?

Typical! I break my neck trying to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!

After that, he tried to go upstairs through the broom cupboard, and then the yard. This seemed to puzzle him a little. But finally he discovered the stairs, all except the bottom on, and fell up them on his face. The whole castle shook.

Pray use both cats as sponges if it pleases you, infatuated infantryman.

You have no right to make jigsaws of people.

Fantasy for me as a kid was real, and I had a fantasy about what life was, whether it was sort of wicked and dire, or wholly normal, or whatever. Anything really close to home is not, it seems to me, what a good book should be about.

Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.

Yes, you are nosy. You're a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman. Control yourself. You're victimizing us all.

If I give you a hint and tell you it's a hint, it will be information.

Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only need to tell things to once.

A heart's a heavy burden.

I could cut a star out of paper and drop it.

I think we ought to live happily ever after, and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more hair-raising than any storybook made it sound, though she was determined to try. It should be hair-raising, added Howl. And you'll exploit me, Sophie said.And then you'll cut up all my suits to teach me.

No I am not all right!" Chrestomanci said, after five minutes of thisI have worldwide blisters. I need a shave. I'm tired out and I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast yesterday. Would you feel alright in my position?"

But most dragons seem to have interesting personalities--besides probably having quite good reasons for what they do, if only one could understand them

Howl said to Sophie, "I've been wondering all along if you would turn out to be that lovely girl I met on May Day. Why were you scared then?

I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.

Can't you just keep your big mouth shut?" Brian said furiously to Nan. He pointed to Chrestomanci. "How do we know he's safe? For all we know, he could be the devil that you summoned up!" "Oh, you flatter me, Brian," Chrestomanci said.

I do feel very strongly that this is one of the things which people need encouragement to sort out, because I have this very strong feeling that everybody is probably a genius at something, it's just a question of finding this.

He picked up the skull and knocked an onion ring out of its eye socket. "I see Sophie has been busy again. Couldn't you have restrained her, my friend?" The skull yattered its teeth at him. Howl put it down rather hastily.

Sophie did not care to think how Howl might react if Fanny woke him by stabbing him with her parasol.

All she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to 'jutht TRY it.

Learn to drive?" "Never," said Quentin. "My mission in life is to be a passenger.

What makes you a real girl or boy is that no one laughs at you. If you are imitation or unreal, the rules give you a right to exist provided you do what the real ones or brutes say. What makes you into me or Charles Morgan is that the rules allow all the girls to be better than me and all the boys better than Charles Morgan.

She was remorseless, but she lacked method.

No I am not all right! Chrestomanci said, after five minutes of thisI have worldwide blisters. I need a shave. I'm tired out and I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast yesterday. Would you feel alright in my position?

Oh confound that gray-and-scarlet suit! Sophie saidI refuse to believe that I was the one that got caught with it!

I feel ill," [Howl] announced. "I'm going to bed, where I may die.

...and said grace in Welsh. It was all rolling, thundering language.

Jamal stared at the dog in his arms. "Why I am I holding a dog full of angels?

Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things.

I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober.

To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.

The truth between two people always cuts two ways.

Tantrums are seldom about the thing they appear to be about.

Every man in Ingary is scared stiff of her. You ought to know how that feels, Sophie dear.

Busy old fool, unruly Sophie

I've got a hangover!" "No, you hit your head on the floor," Sophie said. Howl rose up on his hands and knees with a scramble. "I can't stay," he said. "I've got to rescue that fool Sophie." "I'm here!" Sophie shook his shoulder. "But so is Mis Angorian! Get up and do something about her!

Things we are accustomed to regard as myth or fairy story are very much present in people's lives. Nice people behave like wicked stepmothers. Every day.

And you're too nice," he added, above the lap-lap of the water and the patter of sand on the water-lily leaves. "I was relying on you being too jealous to let that demon near the place.

That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.

Mainly as sort of blueprints for dealing with most of the adults in their lives, to some extent with their fellows. It is this notion of aiming high and there's always hope, aim low and you might as well stop now.

I think one of things is that all fantasy it seems to me works the way your brain basically works. This is perhaps a startling concept, but I think it's true.

And indeed if you think you're a genius at something, what you achieve is very much according to your expectations; if you think you're no good, you're not going to get anywhere.

"Eight Days of Luke" was refused by another confused publisher on the grounds that children shouldn't strike matches. When my agent pointed out that David in the book was twelve years old, the publisher said that he was striking matches to summon the devil, then, and this couldn't be allowed.

I am a believer in free will. If my dog chooses to hate the whole human race except myself, it must be free to do so.

Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.

Hope is the forward-looking part of memory.

It does not seem to me that I have the right to foist a story on people, most of whom are children who should be learning all the time, unless I am learning from it too.

My shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me.

Doras II was a somewhat absentminded king, It is said, when Death came to summon him, Doras granted Death the usual formal audience and then dismissed him from his presence. Death was too embarrassed to return until many years later- Ka'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances

I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.

But I discovered that people like me -- they do, you know, if you like them -- and then it was all right.

Chrestomanci smiled and swept out of the room like a very long procession of one person.

It's amazing the way one can take a step ten and a half miles long and still always land in a cowpat.

Things are going round and round in my head--or maybe my head is going round and round in things.

You cannot rob robbers with a kitten in your hat!

If you must know, I-I had never in my life kissed a young lady, and you are far too beautiful to me to want to get it wrong!

Controller Borasus sighed with relief. Libraries were not places of danger. It had to be a hoax.

All these things that crib and cab in your brain, in your imagination, are in fact things that might well in later life drive you insane.

In addition, Master Twinkle seems convinced that someone is denying him a pair of stripey trousers.

Then there you are, then. The day Howl forgets to do that will be the day I believe he's really in love, and not before." Michael to Sophie about wether or not Howl is really in love with Lettie. pg, 170

There is very seldom any true secret.

Do you mind not being so kind and obedient? It makes me nervous.

...don't spoil my learning process!

Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World.

In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.

Really, these wizards! You'd think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?" she asked, hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet. "I'm dying of boredom," Howl said pathetically. "Or maybe just dying.

Tell me about this Wizard Howl of yours." "He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything." "Indeed? Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies." "What do you mean, vices? I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he's dead!

I'm going up to my room now, where I may die.

I think we ought to live happily ever after," and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more hair-raising than any storybook made it sound, though she was determined to try. "It should be hair-raising," added Howl. "And you'll exploit me," Sophie said. "And then you'll cut up all my suits to teach me.

It was only when Shona, in sheer fury, turned the carnivorous sheep among them that they moved. They ran, some of them with charming little white sheep attached to their legs or backsides and the rest shouting about monsters.

Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping.

You must admit I have a right to live in a pigsty if I want.

This is the mythosphere. It's made up of all the stories, theories and beliefs, legends, myths and hopes, that are generated here on Earth. As you can see, it's constantly growing and moving as people invent new tales to tell or find new things to believe. The older strands move out to become these spirals, where things tend to become quite crude and dangerous. They've hardened off, you see.

Take it from me, Fate doesn't care most of the time.

I can't abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!

Nobody gets praised for the right reasons.

This book will prove the following ten facts: 1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there. 2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch. 3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity. 4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight. 5. Music does not always sooth the troubled beast. 6. An Englishman's home is his castle. 7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male. 8. One black eye deserves another. 9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm. 10. It pays to increase your word power.

I hope your bacon burns.

You've no right to walk into people's castles and take their guitars.

Goats," said Maxwell Hyde, "are a special case. Mad as hatters, all of them.

He scarcely saw his parents. When Christopher was small, he was terrified that he would meet Papa out walking in the Park one day and not recognize him.

When have you looked?" said Sophie. "Oh, how your rears flap and your long nose twitches", Howl croaked.

She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.

You've probably all had those kinds of dreams that are like usual life, except that a lot of things are not the same, and you seem to know the future in them. Well, this is because these other worlds where two things can happen spread out from our world like rainbows, and sort of flow into one another-

I've seen golems. They don't behave like a real person.

And it's a pity too that I've no right to open your letters. I hope you don't get many, or my conscience will give me no peace.

A fickle heart is the only constant in this world

It was a perfectly normal May Day, but Sophie was scared of that too. And when a young man in a fantastical blue-and-silver costume spotted Sophie and decided to accost her as well, Sophie shrank into a shop doorway and tried to hide. The young man looked at her in surprise. "It's all right, you little gray mouse," he said laughing rather pityingly. "I only want to buy you a drink. Don't look so scared.

Then watch out. I warn you!" "That is very considerate of you," said Chrestomanci. "I like to be warned.

One does not want glory accepted as a matter of course. One wants to shock and astonish people with it.

You are a terror, aren't you? Leave this yard alone. I know just where everything is in it, and I won't be able to find the things I need for my transport spells if you tidy them up.'So there was probably a bundle of souls or a box of chewed hearts somewhere out here, Sophie thought. She felt really thwarted. 'Tidying up is what I'm here for!' she shouted at Howl. 'Then you must think of a new meaning for your life,' Howl said.

A library is a place full of mouth-watering food for thought.

It does seem that a fantasy, working out in its own terms, stretching you beyond the normal concerns of your own life, gains you a peculiar charge of energy which inexplicably enriches you. At least, this is my ideal of a fantasy, and I am always trying to write it.

It's a lucky child that knows that they're a genius, unaimed and all that.

One person ought to treat another person properly, even if the person's himself.

I think my moment of revelation came when I saw this young man come on court in the most flamboyant clothes. He had a sweet smile and questionably blonde hair and a generally chirpy glamour that in fact concealed huge skill. When he was interviewed he confessed to hating to get angry and it was also said that he slithered out of winning when it came to the big matches. And I thought, My God! This Andre Agassi is the image of Howl in my book HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE!

Sorry, I've had enough of running away, Sophie. Now I've got something I want to protect. It's you.