The willows Quotes

“This is surely the most significant of the elements that Tolkien brought to fantasy.... his arranged marriage between the Elder Edda and "The Wind in the Willows"--big Icelandic romance and small-scale, cozy English children's book. The story told by "The Lord of the Rings" is essentially what would happen if Mole and Ratty got drafted into the Nibelungenlied.”

“I love the long grass coming up to meet the willows.”

“Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole to exalt.”

“What one thinks finds expression in words, and what one says, happens.”

“Ghosts will forever put in appearances, as they should. Our illusions have muscle and meaning. The past returns at midnight, in the heart of our dreams, and the rains and the willows forever remind us of the sacrifices we’ve offered and those we have yet to make.”

“Patience is all we have in a land where time is obsolete. I press on, armored stranger. I am not deceiving you. The willows have always grown silent in my wake. I see and feel your ailing mind and it worries me. The night that follows you grows stronger. You still have time to change.”

“And Mrs. Treaclebunny has promised to speak English from now on as well. In fact, she said when she goes to England, that's all she speaks anyway because the animals speak English there. She says anyone who has read children's books with animals in them set in England would know that. Is The Wind in the Willows written in Mole with a little Ratty thrown in? Is Winnie-the-Pooh written in Bear? No, it's English, because that's what the animals there speak. I didn't know that before. Travel is so broadening.”

“When he came back, I hid my face within my hands. He said: "Fear nothing. Who has seen our kiss? --Who saw us? The night and the moon.""And the stars and the first flush of dawn. The moon has seen its visage in the lake, and told it to the water 'neath the willows. The water told it to the rower's oar."And the oar has told it to the boat, and the boat has passed the secret to the fisher. Alas! alas! if that were only all! But the fisher told the secret to a woman."The fisher told the secret to a woman: my father and my mother and my sisters, and all of Hellas now shall know the tale.”

“But we who remain shall grow oldWe shall know the coldOf cheerlessWinter and the rain of Autumn and the stingOf poverty, of love despised and of disgraces,And mirrors showing stained and aging faces, And the long ranges of comfortless yearsAnd the long gamut of human fears...But, for you, it shall forever be spring,And only you shall be forever fearless, And only you have white, straight, tireless limbs,And only you, where the water-lily swimsShall walk along the pathways thro' the willows Of your west. You who went West, and only you on silvery twilight pillows Shall take your restIn the soft sweet gloomsOf twilight rooms...”