Oh, I could do this all day.  Except that, well, I couldn’t — too many other things to do.  So, here are ten more.  And then I’ll stop.  For now.

“Welcome!” he said.  “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
“Thank you!”
— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1998; in the UK and the rest of the world, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone [1997]), p. 123.

I have often thought that if the people who write books for children knew a little more it would be better. I shall not tell you anything about us except what I should like to know about if I was reading the story and you were writing it. Albert’s uncle says I ought to have put this in the preface, but I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.
— Oswald Bastable, in E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), Chapter 2.

But potatoes never listen.
Potatoes have no ears.
— Toby Speed, Brave Potatoes (2000), illustrated by Barry Root

I see the Master as a man having terrible choices to make; whatever he chooses will do harm, but maybe if he does the right thing, a little less harm will come about than if he chooses wrong.  God preserve me from having to make that sort of choice.
— John Faa, in Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (1995; Northern Lights in the UK), p. 128.

“Now we have no more cookies to eat,” said Toad sadly.  “Not even one.”
“Yes,” said Frog, “but we have lots and lots of will power.”
“You may keep it all, Frog,” said Toad.  “I am going home now to bake a cake.”
— Arnold Lobel, “Cookies,” Frog and Toad Together (1972)

His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
— Edward Lear, “How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!”

Dmitri hardly had a chance to relax before somebody recognized him.
“Aren’t you Barney Abernathy from Cincinnati?”
“No!” said Dmitri.  “I’m Dmitri the astronaut.”
“Oh,” said the man,” I’m so sorry.”
— Jon Agee, Dmitri the Astronaut (1996)

“You once told me that fish are meant for fish,” Bagley said.  “Do you still think that?”
“Well, I’m not really sure anymore,” she confessed, looking up again.  “The truth is, I was just spouting what I’d always heard.  It’s the inside of things that matters.  Not the outside.  I see that now.”
— Tor Seidler, The Wainscot Weasel (1993)

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
— Langston Hughes, The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932)

A dream is to look at the night and see things.
— Ruth Krauss, A Hole Is to Dig (1952)

The responses to yesterday’s “Commonplace Book” post prompts me to list here ten favorite lines from children’s literature.  (And please see yesterday’s post for quotations from Crockett Johnson and Dr. Seuss, and yesterday’s comments for great lines from E. B. White and Louis Sachar.)

To get very far he was going to need a lot of books.  B is for Books.  He could find plenty of big words in a pile of big books.  He was ready for anything.
— Crockett Johnson, Harold’s ABC (1963)

You can write books about anything.  For instance, fruits.  The first page could be a banana and the second page could be an orange and the third could be cherries, and like that.  If you can’t write yet, you could just draw.  Then the book could be especially for someone who can’t read yet.
— Ruth Krauss, “How to write a book,” in How to Make an Earthquake (1954), illustrated by Crockett Johnson, p. 27.

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages — and kings.
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.’
— Lewis Carroll, chapter 4 of Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there (1871)

We like our toys.
We take CARE of our TOYS.
We do not want our toys to become broken.
We want to keep our toys for along time.
Cousin Stinky has come over to play.
“Where are your toys?” he asks.
“What is ‘TOYS’?” we ask.
“We do not know what that word means.”
— Lane Smith, The Happy Hocky Family (1993)

Grown ups aren’t some kind of weird monsters that have fun making us do things we don’t want to do.  They just know a whole lot more than we do because they have been here longer.
— Munro Leaf, How to Behave and Why (1946)

You must never feel badly about making mistakes, as long as you take the trouble to learn from them.  For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.
—  The Princess of Pure Reason, in Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), p. 233

“Do you like educational games?” Hodgkins asked cautiously.
“I love them!” said the Nibling.
I sat down and didn’t know what to say.
— Tove Jannson, Moominpappa’s Memoirs, translated by Thomas Warburton (1968), p. 147

Hodges is considered by many to be the finest pastry chef in the city.
Too bad his duck is so crazy.
— Tim Egan, Friday Night at Hodges’ Café (1994)

For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (1908),Chapter 36

The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. “For,” they said, “there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man.”  And, as far as they knew, they were quite right.
— L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

Yes, that last one was in honor of today’s midterm elections here in the U.S.  And, of course, one could add many more quotations to this list.  Among those who ought to be represented here are: Francesca Lia Block, Dr. Seuss, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Langston Hughes, Florence Parry Heide, J.K. Rowling, and the list goes on and on!  Do feel free to add your own below.

People once kept commonplace books — personal, portable anthologies of favorite quotations.  Today, the “Favorite Quotations” section on Facebook offers a brief, public version of the commonplace book.  This practice has, I think, mostly faded.  At any rate, here are ten quotations that would be in my commonplace book.

But, luckily, he kept his wits and his purple crayon.
— Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955)

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
— often attributed to Groucho Marx

Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them.
— Julius Erving, as quoted by David Halberstam, in Clyde Haberman, “David Halberstam, 73, Reporter and Author, Dies,” New York Times, 24 Apr. 2007

This is the life that I chose or, rather, the life that chose me.
— Jay-Z, “December 4th,” The Black Album (2003)

It’s like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music — good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.
— Ray Charles

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
— Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (1957), p. 15

UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.
— Dr. Seuss, The Lorax (1971)

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
— Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—” (c. 1868), in Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson’s Poems, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (1954), p. 248

Nobody’s perfect.
— spoken by Joe E. Brown, Some Like It Hot (1959, dir. Billy Wilder), screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
— Leonard Cohen, “Anthem,” The Future (1992)

I do like resonant quotations.  I think I will do a “commonplace book” post in the future featuring only quotations from children’s literature.  I suspect that this has already been done on other children’s lit blogs, but of course commonplace books are personal, idiosyncratic endeavors.  So, even if it’s been done before (and I’m sure it has been), my children’s literature commonplace book will at least be different, eh?