"Dorothea blew out her candle and settled down in the middle of the big spare room bed. An owl called in the woods. 'Not a barn owl, but a tawny,' thought Dick, listening to the sharp 'Gewick! Gewick!' as he fell asleep. A smell of new-mown hay drifted from the meadows on the further side of the river. 'There isn't a lovelier place in all the world,' thought Dorothea. London last night, and now Beckfoot. The summer holidays had begun."

“A pigeon a day keeps the natives away”

“Houses, are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition. I admit, doubtfully, as exceptions, snail-shells and caravans. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting-place.”

“Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been.”

“They found, like many explorers before them, that somehow, in their absence, they had got into trouble at home.”

“Softly, at first, as if it hardly meant it, the snow began to fall.”

“When a thing's done, it's done, and if it's not done right, do it differently next time.”