Hugh Lofting

“But I like the animals better than the ‘best people,’ ” said the Doctor.

“He talks their language,” he said in a hoarse, mysterious voice.

Human attention is like butter: you can only spread it so thin and no thinner.

Do you usually leave your craft in the charge of a pig, with orders to go to sleep?

Dogs nearly always use their noses for asking questions.

It was like the Doctor, comfortable, sensible, friendly and solid.

The gentlest jump sent one flying off the insect’s back to the ground where you landed from a twenty-five-foot drop with ease and comfort.

They think we live on men and breathe fire! But all we ever really eat is bananas.

I kicked him in the right place.

Every animal in this zoo stays here because he likes it, not because he is made to.

He came to new problems with a child-like innocence which made it easy for himself to learn and the others to teach.

In fact very many post offices even nowadays seem to pride themselves on their bad pens.

Why, I wouldn’t even eat them between meals!

And the days passed very quickly⁠—as they always do when life is pleasant

Most other explorers would have begun by planting a flag and singing national anthems. Not so with John Dolittle.

Nobody writes to me, so I write to myself.

Nobody but a fool is ever rude to a good doctor.

But I found Doctor John Dolittle, the famous naturalist, standing on top of a chair, dancing about on one leg like a schoolboy.

Never has a breakfast tasted so marvelous as did that one of fruits which I could not name.

What is there more beautiful in life than the heart of a young lettuce in the Spring?