Eleanor Farjeon Quotes (1881-1965)

“Upon your shattered ruins where This vine will flourish still, as rare, As fresh, as fragrant as of old. Love will not crumble.”

“Upon your shattered ruins where This vine will flourish still, as rare, As fresh, as fragrant as of old. Love will not crumble.”

“In Arcady there lies a crystal spring Ring'd all about with green melodious reeds Swaying seal'd music up and down the wind. Here on its time-defaced pedestal The image of a half-forgotten God Crumbles to its complete oblivion.”

“Morning has broken, Like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken Like the first bird. Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning! Praise for them springing Fresh from the Word!”

“Every man's life (and … every woman's life), awaits the hour of blossoming that makes it immortal … love is a divinity above all accidents, and guards his own with extraordinary obstinacy.”

“I will fight for you, yes, and you will fight for me. And if you have sacrificed joy and courage and beauty and wisdom for my sake, I will give them all to you again; and yet you must also give them to me, for they are things in which without you I am wanting. But together we can make them.”

“He could not be captured, He could not be bought, His running was rhythm, His standing was thought; With one eye on sorrow And one eye on mirth, He galloped in heaven And gambolled on earth. And only the poet With wings to his brain Can mount him and ride him Without any rein, The stallion of heaven, The steed of the skies, The horse of the singer Who sings as he flies.”

“I was a little overworked. I had been reading a great number of manuscripts in the preceding weeks, and the mere sight of typescript was a burden to me. But before I had read five pages of Martin Pippin, I had forgotten that it was a manuscript submitted for my judgment. I had forgotten who I was and where I lived. I was transported into a world of sunlight, of gay inconsequence, of emotional surprise, a world of poetry, delight, and humor. And I lived and took my joy in that rare world, until all too soon my reading was done. My most earnest wish is that there may be many minds and imaginations among the American people who will be able to share that pleasure with me. For every one who finds delight in this book I can claim as a kindred spirit.”

“I was touched and surprised when, one day in her eighties, she said a little sadly, yet with the confidence of one who can face her own limitations, "I have always tried to use what little talent I had to the full". This remark had to do with the statement in the preface to Silver-Sand and Snow, … that – "In my youth I dreamed of being a 'real' poet, but half way through my life that dream died, and whatever figments of it remained went into writing songs and verses for children."”

“Great Britain has blessed the world of children with a number of poets and storytellers. … But perhaps no one was more loved by children in the British Isles or published more books than Eleanor Farjeon. She once said that she was "singing songs before she could write, and even before she could speak, and as soon as she could guide a pencil she began to write them down." When she died in 1965 at the age of eighty-four, she had published more than eighty books of stories and poems for children.”

“An author is known by the worlds he creates. The measure of his greatness is the degree of clarity and the consistency with which he builds his spirit’s habitation, the depth and height it offers the reader who enters it. Eleanor Farjeon’s world is construed of fantasy, romance, and an abounding yea-saying joy in the experience of life. It is the stuff that dreams are made of, and as dangerous as dynamite except for those who have genius in their blood, a compassionate heart, a sense of wonder at the multitudinous miracles to be met in one day’s living in this world, and the blessed proportion of wit, humor and nonsense. All these she has.”