Quote#Speech
The most modest and retiring dragon in the world, if he's as big as…
Quote byKenneth Grahame · 1859–1932
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Reluctant Dragon.
English (original)
The most modest and retiring dragon in the world, if he's as big as four cart-horses and covered with blue scales, cannot keep altogether out of the public view. And so in the village tavern of nights the fact that a real live dragon sat brooding in the cave on the Downs was naturally a subject for talk.
— Kenneth Grahame
More from Kenneth Grahame
Don't, for goodness' sake, keep on saying 'Don't;' I hear so much of it, and it's monotonous, and makes me tired.
Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours.
As a rule, indeed, grown-up people are fairly correct on matters of fact; it is in the higher gift of imagination that they are so sadly to seek.
Look here, father, you know we've each of us got our line. You know about sheep, and weather, and things; I know about dragons.
Monkeys, who very sensibly refrain from speech lest they should be set to earn their livings.
The dreadful beast must be exterminated, the country-side must be freed from this pest, this terror, this destroying scourge. The fact that not even a hen roost was the worse for the dragon's arrival wasn't allowed to have anything to do …