Secret Garden Quotes

“When the invisible wall between two secret gardens crumbles down, it may provoke an irreparable emotional earth slide or it may be an unexpected opportunity of building a newfangled bridge between clandestine desires and furtive impulses. .( "No handkerchief, when you need it")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?”

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked quite startled.

“Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”

“To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to see them come alive,” Mary faltered.

He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

“Do you—care about gardens so much,” he said slowly.

“I didn’t know about them in India,” said Mary. “I was always ill and tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and stuck flowers in them. But here it is different.”

Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

“A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want,” with something like a smile, “take it, child, and make it come alive.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“With skin dressed only in moonlight, she beckons you to her secret garden.”
― John Mark Green

“Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously. "It wouldn't seem like a secret garden if it was tidy.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“When I was at school my jography told as th' world was shaped like a orange an' I found out before I was ten that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than his bit of a quarter an' there's times it seems like there's not enow quarters to go round. But don't you - none o' you - think as you own th' whole orange or you'll find out that you're mistaken, an' you won't find it out without hard knocks.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett

“Of course there must be lots of magic in the world, but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make it happen.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“If you stand at the window where I stood, if you read the books that I read, if we can be with each other even just like that...then lets, count that as us being together. I'll miss you alot. I love you. I love you...”
― T.O.P

“It's something, it can be nothing. I don't know its name, so I call it magic. I've never seen a sunrise, but Mary and Dickon have, and for what they tell me, I'm sure that is magic, too. Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden--in all the places. The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I don't know how to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling it perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast as she could, `You can do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me-and so did Dickon's. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am going to say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And you must all do it, too. That is my experiment Will you help, Ben Weatherstaff?”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“A body 'as to move gentle an' speak low when wild things is about.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“The world beyond the hidden garden vanished from her awareness. There was only this place, this patch of Eden, sunny and quiet and blazing with unearthly color. The mixed scents of lavender and warm male skin were all around her... too delicious... too compelling...”
― Lisa Kleypas, It Happened One Autumn

“A Rakshasi did not live here.
A princess did.
I was staring into the most dazzling garden I had ever seen. Cobblestone pathways meandered between rows of salmon-hued hibiscus, regal hollyhock, delicate impatiens, wild orchids, thorny rosebushes, and manicured shrubs starred with jasmine. Bunches of bougainvillea cascaded down the sides of the wall, draped across the stone like extravagant shawls. Magnolia trees, cotton-candy pink, were interspersed with coconut trees, which let in streaks of purplish light through their fanlike leaves. A rock-rimmed pond glistened in a corner of the garden, and lotus blossoms sprouting from green discs skimmed its surface. A snow white bird that looked like a peacock wove in and out through a grove of pomegranate trees, which were set aflame by clusters of deep orange blossoms. I had seen blue peacocks before, but never a white one.
An Ashoka tree stood at one edge of the garden, as if on guard, near the door. A brief wind sent a cluster of red petals drifting down from its branches and settling on the ground at my feet. A flock of pale blue butterflies emerged from a bed of golden trumpet flowers and sailed up into the sky. In the center of this scene was a peach stucco cottage with green shutters and a thatched roof, quaint and idyllic as a dollhouse. A heavenly perfume drifted over the wall, intoxicating me- I wanted nothing more than to enter.”
― Kamala Nair, The Girl in the Garden

“As I walked, I became aware of the strong odor of peonies and jasmine. I inhaled deeply to draw in the lovely bouquet. The scent was from the fresh flowers of a lush garden.
The path opened into a courtyard, a tangle of peonies and jasmine framing the entrance, blooming in spectacular fashion. Silky petals brushed against my skin. The tension building in my neck and shoulders melted away as I entered a fairyland.
The rustle of the night breeze joined the familiar voice of Teresa Teng echoing from invisible speakers. Beneath my feet, a path of moss-covered stones led to a circular platform surrounded by a large, shallow pond. The night garden was bursting with a palette of muted greens, starlit ivories, and sparkling golds: the verdant lichen and waxy lily pads in the pond, the snowy white peonies and jasmine flowers, and the metallic tones of the fireflies suspended in the air, the square-holed coins lining the floor of the pond, and the special golden three-legged creatures resting on the floating fronds.
I knew these creatures from my childhood. The feng shui symbol of prosperity, Jin Chan was transformed into a golden toad for stealing the peaches of immortality. Jin Chan's three legs represented heave, earth, and humanity. Statues of him graced every Chinese home I had ever been in, for fortune was a visitor always in demand. Ma-ma had placed one near the stairs leading to the front door.
The pond before me held eight fabled toads, each biting on a coin. If not for the subtle rise and fall of their vocal sacs, I would have thought them statues.”
― Roselle Lim, Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune

“You stop! I hate you! Everybody hates you! I wish everybody would run out of the house and let you scream yourself to death! You will scream yourself to death in a minute, and I wish you would!”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“She guided me down a narrow cobblestone path winding toward the cottage. Blue-and-white flowers shaped like conch shells bordered the path, and their satiny petals brushed against my ankles. The heady fragrance of frangipane lingered in the air. A rainbow of butterflies circled above our heads. The cottage's thatched roof winked under the sun. The peacock was lying on the front step, docile and languid as a Persian cat. He lifted his head to meet Tulasi's outstretched hand.
"This is Puck," she said, stroking his feathers.
"Aren't you afraid he'll fly away?"
"No, Puck would never do that. He's just as bound to this garden as I am.”
― Kamala Nair, The Girl in the Garden

“The light catching in the drops that clung to the window cast tiny darts of rainbows that danced around them.
"Spring is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine”
― Ella Griffin, The Flower Arrangement

“I used always to be tired. When I dig I'm not tired at all. I like to smell the earth when it's turned up [...] There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“When he turned the handle of the gate, he stood, transfixed, as it opened like the cover of a book onto a scene that seemed too perfect to be real. An effusive garden grew between the flagstone path and the house, foxgloves waving brightly in the breeze, daisies and violets chattering over the edges of the paving stones. The jasmine that covered the garden wall continued its spread across the front of the house, surrounding the multipaned windows to tangle with the voracious red flowers of the honeysuckle creeper as it clambered over the roof of the entry alcove. The garden was alive with insects and birds, which made the house seem still and silent, like a Sleeping Beauty house. Leonard had felt, as he took his first step onto the path, as if he were walking back through time; he could almost see Radcliffe and his friends with their paints and easels set up on the lawn beyond the blackberry bramble...”
― Kate Morton, The Clockmaker's Daughter

“It was a beautiful garden: the proportions, the plants, the feeling of enclosure granted by the surrounding stone wall. The fragrance, too, was heady: a hint of late-blooming jasmine mingled with lavender and honeysuckle. Birds flitted in the gaps between leaves, and bees and butterflies hovered over flowers in the ample garden beds.
The gate through which she'd come was the side entrance, Juliet saw now, for another, larger path led away from the house towards a solid wooden gate set into the stones of the front wall. The wider path was lined on either side by standard roses wearing soft pink petals, and at its end was a large Japanese maple tree that had grown to reach across the front entrance.”
― Kate Morton, The Clockmaker's Daughter

“She wondered if every place in New Orleans had a secret garden, if every place was so witchy and beautiful. And for the first time, she was filled with an enormous pride for who she was--what she was, all of it. That pride filled the spaces between her bones so that it was impossible not to stand tall.

Anxiety makes everything feel very big or very small, depending on which is more hurtful in the moment. Being suddenly relived of anxiety in this moment gave her a clear understanding that this was the life she had been running towards. Not necessarily New Orleans, not a distant dot on a map, not a brand-new career, but a life full of secret gardens”
― Cherie Dimaline, VenCo