The Borrowers Quotes

Everything they had was borrowed; they had nothing of their own at all. Nothing. In spite of this, my brother said, they were touchy and conceited, and thought they owned the world. (1.44)

His wife and child led more sheltered lives in homelike apartments under the kitchen, far removed from the risks and dangers of the dreaded house above. But there was a grating in the brick wall of...

She felt quite safe; Homily liked her to write; Homily encouraged any form of culture. Homily herself, poor ignorant creature, could not even say the alphabet. (2.17)

"Yes, and he was our little brother. I think that was why"—she thought for a moment, still smiling to herself—"yes, why he told us such impossible stories, such strange imaginings. He was jealo...

But my brother said that, underneath, he thought they were frightened. It was because they were frightened, he thought, that they had grown so small. Each generation had become smaller and smaller,...

Arrietty saw him scurry across the sunlit floor. Swiftly he ran—as a mouse runs or a blown dry leaf—and suddenly she saw him as "small." "But," she told herself, "he isn't small. He's a head ta...

She saw the gleaming golden stone floor of the hall stretching away into distance; she saw the edges of rugs, like richly colored islands in a molten sea, and she saw, in the glory of sunlight—li...

"I don't know," said Mrs. May, shaking her head, "I just don't know!" she smoothed out her work upon her knee. "He was such a tease. He told us so many things—my sister and me—impossible things...