Winnie-the-Pooh quotes

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.

It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.

And then he feels that perhaps there isn’t. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh.

“So could you very sweetly?”

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.

(“What does ‘under the name’ mean?” asked Christopher Robin.

First of all he said to himself: “That buzzing-noise means something.

You don’t get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something.

If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee.”

And then he got up, and said:

“And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it.”

So he began to climb the tree.

“They might or they might not,” said Winnie-the-Pooh. “You never can tell with bees.” He thought for a moment and said: “

I shall try to look like a small black cloud. That will deceive them.

”

“Isn’t that fine?” shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you. “What do I look like?”

“You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon,” you said.

“Not,” said Pooh anxiously, “—not like a small black cloud in a blue sky?”

“

I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These are the wrong sort of bees.

”

“Of course I have,” you said. “But if I do that, it will spoil the balloon,” you said.

“But if you don’t,” said Pooh, “I shall have to let go, and that would spoil me.”

When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you aimed very carefully at the balloon, and fired.

“Did I miss?” you asked.

“You didn’t exactly miss,” said Pooh, “but you missed the balloon.”

“I’m so sorry,” you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the balloon, and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down to the ground.

“I do remember,” he said, “only Pooh doesn’t very well, so that’s why he likes having it told to him again.

Because then it’s a real story and not just a remembering.

”

“The fact is,” said Rabbit, “you’re stuck.”

“It all comes,” said Pooh crossly, “of not having front doors big enough.”

“It all comes,” said Rabbit sternly, “of eating too much. I thought at the time,” said Rabbit, “only I didn’t like to say anything,” said Rabbit, “that one of us was eating too much,” said Rabbit, “and I knew it wasn’t me,” he said.

“You mean I’d never get out?” said Pooh.

“I mean,” said Rabbit, “that having got so far, it seems a pity to waste it.”

“Then there’s only one thing to be done,” he said. “We shall have to wait for you to get thin again.”

Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn’t because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said:

“Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?”

So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end … and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer.

And for a long time Pooh only said “Ow!” …

And then, all of a sudden, he said “Pop!” just as if a cork were coming out of a bottle.

And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit’s friends and relations went head-over-heels backwards … and on the top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh—free!

“Tracking what?” said Piglet, coming closer.

“That’s just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?”

“What do you think you’ll answer?”

“I see now,” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

“I have been Foolish and Deluded,” said he, “and I am a Bear of No Brain at All.”

“You’re the Best Bear in All the World,” said Christopher Robin soothingly.

“Am I?” said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up suddenly.

“Anyhow,” he said, “it is nearly Luncheon Time.”

So he went home for it.

Eeyore shook his head from side to side.

“Not very how,” he said. “I don’t seem to have felt at all how for a long time.”

“Dear, dear,” said Pooh, “I’m sorry about that. Let’s have a look at you.”

“Of course I’m right,” said Pooh.

“That Accounts for a Good Deal,” said Eeyore gloomily. “It Explains Everything. No Wonder.”

“You must have left it somewhere,” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

“You must have left it somewhere,” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

“Somebody must have taken it,” said Eeyore. “How Like Them,” he added, after a long silence.

Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn’t quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead.

“Somebody must have taken it,” said Eeyore. “How Like Them,” he added, after a long silence.

Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn’t quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead.

“Eeyore,” he said solemnly, “I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will find your tail for you.”

“What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?” said Pooh. “

For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.

”

He had murmured this to himself three times in a singing sort of way, when suddenly he remembered. He had put it into the Cunning Trap to catch the Heffalump.

“Bother!” said Pooh. “It all comes of trying to be kind to Heffalumps.”

And he got back into bed.

Then Piglet saw what a Foolish Piglet he had been, and he was so ashamed of himself that he ran straight off home and went to bed with a headache. But Christopher Robin and Pooh went home to breakfast together.

“Oh, Bear!” said Christopher Robin. “How I do love you!”

“So do I,” said Pooh.

Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water.

“Pathetic,” he said. “That’s what it is. Pathetic.”

He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again.

“Presents?” said Pooh. “Birthday cake?” said Pooh. “Where?”

“Neither can I,” said Eeyore. “Joke,” he explained. “Ha ha!”

Pooh scratched his head, being a little puzzled by all this.

“That, Piglet, is a very good idea. It is just what Eeyore wants to cheer him up.

Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.

”

He hadn’t gone more than halfway when a sort of funny feeling began to creep all over him. It began at the tip of his nose and trickled all through him and out at the soles of his feet.

It was just as if somebody inside him were saying, “Now then, Pooh, time for a little something.”

“Dear, dear,” said Pooh, “I didn’t know it was as late as that.” So he sat down and took the top off his jar of honey. “Lucky I brought this with me,” he thought.

“Piglet,” said Rabbit, taking out a pencil, and licking the end of it, “you haven’t any pluck.”

“It is hard to be brave,” said Piglet, sniffing slightly, “when you’re only a Very Small Animal.”

Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said:

Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said:

“It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.”

Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful that he forgot to be frightened any more, and when Rabbit went on to say that Kangas were only Fierce during the winter months, being at other times of an Affectionate Disposition, he could hardly …

“Oh!” said Piglet, and tried not to look disappointed. But Pooh went into a corner of the room and said proudly to himself,

“Impossible without Me! That sort of Bear.”

“Now listen all of you,” said Rabbit when he had finished writing, and Pooh and Piglet sat listening very eagerly with their mouths open. This was what Rabbit read out:

Pooh looked after her as she went.

“I wish I could jump like that,” he thought. “Some can and some can’t. That’s how it is.”

But there were moments when Piglet wished that Kanga couldn’t. Often, when he had had a long walk home through the Forest, he had wished that he were a bird; but now he thought jerkily to himself at the bottom of Kanga’s pocket,

But there were moments when Piglet wished that Kanga couldn’t. Often, when he had had a long walk home through the Forest, he had wished that he were a bird; but now he thought jerkily to himself at the bottom of Kanga’s pocket,

“If this is flying I shall never really take to it.”

And as he went up in the air he said, “Ooooooo!” and as he came down he said, “Ow!” And he was saying, “Ooooooo-ow, Ooooooo-ow, Ooooooo-ow” all the way to Kanga’s house.

“Going on an Expotition?” said Pooh eagerly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on one of those. Where are we going to on this Expotition?”

“Expedition, silly old Bear. It’s got an x in it.”

“Oh!” said Pooh. “I know.” But he didn’t really.

“Oh!” said Pooh again. “What is the North Pole?” he asked.

“It’s just a thing you discover,” said Christopher Robin carelessly, not being quite sure himself.

“Oh! I see,” said Pooh. “Are bears any good at discovering it?”

He left Rabbit and hurried down to Piglet’s house. The Piglet was sitting on the ground at the door of his house blowing happily at a dandelion, and wondering whether it would be this year, next year, sometime or never.

He had just discovered that it would be never, and was trying to remember what “it” was, and hoping it wasn’t anything nice, when Pooh came up.

“Oh! Piglet,” said Pooh excitedly, “we’re going on an Expotition, all of us, with things to eat. To discover something.”

“Thank you, Christopher Robin. You’re the only one who seems to understand about tails. They don’t think—that’s what the matter with some of these others. They’ve no imagination.

A tail isn’t a tail to them, it’s just a Little Bit Extra at the back.

”

“There’s Pooh,” he thought to himself. “

Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right.

There’s Owl. Owl hasn’t exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There’s Rabbit. He hasn’t Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan. There’s Kanga.

And then he gave a very long sigh and said, “

I wish Pooh were here. It’s so much more friendly with two.

”

Then he had an idea, and I think that for a Bear of Very Little Brain, it was a good idea. He said to himself:

“If a bottle can float, then a jar can float, and if a jar floats, I can sit on the top of it, if it’s a very big jar.”

So he took his biggest jar, and corked it up. “All boats have to have a name,” he said, “so I shall call mine The Floating Bear.” And with these words he dropped his boat into the water and jumped in after it.

“The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height.”

“There’s a lot of water about,” explained Owl.

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin, “there is.”

“I ought to say,” explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, “that it isn’t just an ordinary sort of boat.

Sometimes it’s a Boat, and sometimes it’s more of an Accident. It all depends.

”