Leonie Swann Quotes

“No sheep may leave the flock," he said to anyone who would listen, "unless he comes back again.”

— Leonie Swann

The sea looked as if it had been licked clean, blue and clear and smooth, and there were a few woolly little clouds in the sky. Legend said that these clouds were sheep who had simply wandered over the cliff tops one day, special sheep who now went on grazing in the sky and were never shorn. In any case, they were a good sign.

— Leonie Swann

“You shouldn't believe what you don't understand. You should understand what you believe.”

— Leonie Swann

“They can herd you only because you can't herd yourselves. Forget the flock. Forget the dogs. Herd yourselves (p. 223).
Melmouth, of the George Flock in Three Bags Full”

— Leonie Swann

“Cordelia was thinking how human beings can invent words, how they can line up their invented words side by side on paper. It was magic.”

— Leonie Swann

Do you think the Goblin King really did it?" asked Cordelia hesitantly. All the sheep knew she was talking about George's death. Mopple quickly pulled up a tuft of grass.
"Or Satan?" added Lane.
"Nonsense," Rameses snorted nervously. "Satan would never do a thing like that."
several of the sheep bleated in agreement. None of them thought Satan capable of such an act. Satan was an elderly donkey who sometimes grazed in the meadow next to theirs, and uttered blood-curdling cries. his voice was truly dreadful, but otherwise he'd always struck them as harmless.

— Leonie Swann

“The group was led by a very thin man whom the sheep didn't know. They looked hard at him. The leader of the flock is always important.”

— Leonie Swann

“Cordelia loved his explanations. She loved knowing words that belonged to things she'd never seen, even to things you couldn't see at all. She remembered those words carefully.
"Magic," George had said, "is something unnatural, something that doesn't really exist. If I snap my fingers and Othello suddenly turns white, that's magic. If I fetch a bucket of paint and paint him white, it isn't." He laughed, and for a moment it looked as if he felt like snapping his fingers or fetching that bucket. Then he went on, "Everything that looks like magic is really a trick. There's no such thing as magic." Cordelia grazed with relish. "Magic" was her favorite word - for something that didn't exist at all.”

— Leonie Swann

“This God sounds rather suspicious to me, said Mopple.”

— Leonie Swann

“Justice!" bleated Othello.
"Justice!" bleated the other sheep. And so it was decided that George Glenn's sheep themselves would solve the wicked murder of their shepherd.”

— Leonie Swann

No, little one, George's ghost won't come back. Human beings don't have souls. No soul, no ghost. Simple."
"How can you say that?" protested Mopple. "We don't know whether humans have souls or not."
"Every lamb knows that your soul is in your sense of smell. And human beings don't have very good noses." Maude herself had an excellent sense of smell, and often thought about the problem of souls and noses.
"So you'd only see a very small ghost. Nothing to be afraid of.

— Leonie Swann

“A story always ends just when it comes to an end. Like a breath.”

— Leonie Swann

“Maple thought optimistically that human beings, on their good days, weren't much dimmer than sheep. Or at least, not much dimmer than dim sheep.”

— Leonie Swann