The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby

“The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.””

— Charles Kingsley

“Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world? People call them Pterodactyles: but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons could exist.””

— Charles Kingsley

“Do as you would be done by.””

— Charles Kingsley

“In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.A water-baby?  You never heard of a water-baby.  Perhaps not.  That is the very reason why this story was written.  (...)"But there are no such things as water-babies."How do you know that?  Have you been there to see?  And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none.  If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood”

— Charles Kingsley

“Stop!" said the Irishwoman. "I have one more word for you both; for you will both see me again before all is over. Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.””

— Charles Kingsley

“And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you too young to understand it.””

— Charles Kingsley

“[...] his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though his head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.””

— Charles Kingsley

“Some people think that there are no fairies. But it is a wide world, and plenty of room in it for fairies, without people seeing them; unless, of course, they look in the right place.””

— Charles Kingsley

“...children always wake after they have slept exactly as long as is good for them..””

— Charles Kingsley