Cressida Cowell
For a Hero cannot triumph all the time. Sometimes he will be defeated, and how he faces that defeat is a test of his character.Collection: Hero
There's no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup, only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imaginationCollection: Imagination
However small we are, we should always fight for what we believe to be right. And I don’t mean fight with the power of our fists or the power of our swords…I mean the power of our brains and our thoughts and our dreams. And as small and quiet and unimportant as our fighting may look, perhaps we might all work together…and break out of the prisons of our own making. Perhaps we might be able to keep this fierce and beautiful world of ours as free for all of us as it seemed to be on that blue afternoon of my childhood.Collection: Beautiful
The past is another land, and we cannot go to visit. So, if I say there were dragons, and men who rode upon their backs, who alive has been there and can tell me that I'm wrong?Collection: Past
Sometimes it is only a True Friend who knows what we mean when we try to speak. Somebody who has spent a lot of time with us, and listens carefully to what we are trying to say, and tries to understand.Collection: True Friend
We're all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.Collection: Peaceful
Remember, there is nothing wrong with a healthy sense of self-respect.Collection: Self
But then I have always been somewhat of a square peg in a round hole.Collection: Squares
A Chief must show no fear, no worry... A Chief is a leader first, and a man second.Collection: Men
The Hero cares not for a wild winter's storm. For it carries him swift on the back of the storm. All may be lost and our hearts may be worn, but a Hero fights forever.Collection: Hero
I was not a natural. . . . This is the story of becoming . . . the Hard Way.Collection: Way
Attention spans are changing. It's very noticeable. I am very aware that the kind of books I read in my childhood kids now won't be able to read. I was reading Kipling and PG Wodehouse and Shakespeare at the age of 11. The kind of description and detail I read I would not put in my books. I don't know how much you can fight that because you want children to read. So I pack in excitement and plot and illustrations and have a cliffhanger every chapter. Charles Dickens was doing cliffhangers way back when. But even with all the excitement you have to make children care about the characters.Collection: Children
Hiccup: Thank You For Nothing You Stupid Reptile.Collection: Stupid
Books were despised by the Viking Tribes, as they were seen as a horrible civilizing influence and a threat to the barbarian culture.Collection: Book
Twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to DeathCollection: Degrees
There were dragons when I was a boy.Collection: Boys
I wanted to be a King who would found a New World, not in some misty country far across the seas, but right here, right now, at home.Collection: Country
Most of us are lucky not to be Kings and Heroes, because we do not have to make the choices that Kings and Heroes have to make.Collection: Kings
The thing about grown ups is that they're always wanting you to be this Great Hero and Leader. What's wrong with being NORMAL, for Thor's sake? What's wrong with just being SO-SO at stuff? They're just totally unrealistic.Collection: Hero
That is a terrible plan." "Hiccup's plans are always t-terrible." "Hey! You're still here, aren't you?Collection: Hey
Sometimes a King has to do terrible things in order to protect those he has sworn to look after. When the stakes are so high, dreadful decisions have to be taken. It is the responsibility of a King to take on that burden, that guilt.Collection: Kings
The dragons I would write about would not be the rather generalized, big, green things that I had read about in storybooks. What I wanted to create was a multiplicity of different dragon species, of all shapes and sizes, adapted to their environment and habitats in the same way as birds or other animals we see today.Collection: Writing
Always sailing, sailing, sailing...never quite reaching.Collection: Sailing
Wartihog put up his hand. "What happens if we can't read, sir?" "No boasting, Wartihog!" boomed Gobber. "Get some idiot to read it for you.Collection: Hands
Oh, for Thor's sake..." said Hiccup. "I thought that was just a story..." "Stories come from somewhere," said the witch. "The past haunts the present in more ways than we realise.Collection: Past
The past haunts the present in more ways than we think. It certainly scares the living daylights out of ME"~ Old WrinklyCollection: Fear
But how can we know that dragons did not exist? We have never actually BEEN to the Dark Ages.Collection: Dark
And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.Collection: Beautiful
GO FOR HIS EYES! OR BITE HIM ON THE NOSE! DRAGON NOSES ARE VERY SENSITIVE!" Oh, very helpful, Camicazi, very helpful...thought Hiccup. What if he doesn't obligingly hold me up to his nose? What if the only part I get close to is the TEETH?Collection: Eye