Astrid Lindgren Quotations

Well, well, so you aren't going to be a maidservant this time?" said Pippi, stroking his back. "Oh, that was a lie, that's true," she continued. "But still, if it's true, how can it be a lie?" she argued. "You wait and see, it's going to turn out he was a maidservant in Arabie after all, and if that's the case, I know who's making the meatballs at our house hereafter!

As the children were sitting there eating pears, a girl came walking along the road from town. When she saw the children she stopped and asked, "Have you seen my papa go by?" "M-m-m," said Pippi. "How did he look? Did he have blue eyes?" "Yes," said the girl. "Medium large, not too tall and not too short?" "Yes," said the girl. "Black hat and black shoes?" "Yes, exactly," said the girl eagerly. "No, that one we haven't seen," said Pippi decidedly.

The girl hurried away, but then Pippi shouted, "Did he have big ears that reached way down to his shoulders?" "No," said the girl and turned and came running back in amazement. "You don't mean to say that you have seen a man walk by with such big ears?" "I have never seen anyone who walks with his ears," said Pippi. "All the people I know walk with their feet.

Then she yelled after the girl, 'No, we haven't seen any bald 'uns all days. But yesterday seventeen of 'em went by. Arm in arm!

At least, not in this country,' she added after a moment's thought. 'In China it's a little different. Once I saw a Chinaman in Shanghai. His ears were so big he could use them for a raincoat. When it rained, he just crept in under his ears and was warm and snug as could be. Not that the ears had such a rattling good time of it, you understand. If it was specially bad weather, he'd invite friends and acquaintances to pitch camp under his ears too. There they sat, singing their sorrowful songs while it poured down outside.

If I have managed to brighten up even one gloomy childhood – then I’m satisfied.

And so I write the way I myself would like the book to be – if I were a child. I write for the child within me.

No Fridolf, bother all this learning. I can't study anymore because I must climb the mast to see what kind of weather we're going to have tomorrow.

I have never experienced being madly in love the way most people seem to have been, although it is not something I would miss. Instead I have had an enormous ability to love my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren.

I have been very interested in labor movement. If I could have wished another life, I would have loved to be a pioneer woman in the beginning of labor movement.

I have noticed several times that people don't think I know how to behave even when I'm trying as hard as I can.

I don't mind dying, I'll gladly do that, but not right now, I need to clean the house first.

What should a good children’s book be like? If you ask me, I can tell you after thinking long and hard: It must be good.

A childhood without books – that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.

But Nightshirts aren't dangerous," Pippi assured her. "They don't bite anybody except in self defense.

But still, if it's true, how can it be a lie?

You understand Teacher, don't you, that when you have a mother who's an angel and a father who is a cannibal king, and when you have sailed on the ocean all your whole life, then you don't know just how to behave in school with all the apples and ibexes.

I don't want to write for adults. I want to write for readers who can perform miracles. Only children perform miracles when they read.

If I have brightened up one single sad childhood, then I have at least accomplished something in my life.

There is very little you can beat into a child, but no limit to what you can hug out of it.

What the world of tomorrow will be like is greatly dependent on the power of imagination in those who are learning to read today.

Everything great that ever happened in this world happened first in somebody’s imagination.

Don't let them get you down. Be cheeky. And wild. And wonderful.

Give the children love, more love and still more love – and the common sense will come by itself.