Happy birthday, A. A. Milne. The English author is most famous for his books about an anthropomorphic bear obsessed with honey, Winnie-the-Pooh. Inspired by his son Christopher’s stuffed toy (originally named Edward), Milne and artist E. H. Shepard set out to create a magical world of talking animals. Milne’s books have fascinated generations for almost 90 years, but there’s no denying that Pooh and friends are a maudlin bunch. In fact, based on these quotes from the Pooh canon (the films included), the wistful creatures were absurdly melancholic and surprisingly existential. If you never appreciated Pooh in your youth, check out these lines that could easily be scrapped Morrissey lyrics.
“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”
“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
“Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.”
“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.”
“I have been Foolish and Deluded. I am a Bear of No Brain At All.”
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
“I used to believe in forever, but forever’s too good to be true.”
“Some people care too much. I think it’s called love.”
“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”
“It’s not much of a tail, but I’m sort of attached to it.”
“I was walking along looking for somebody, and then suddenly I wasn’t anymore.”
“But, after all, what are birthdays? Here to-day and gone to-morrow.”
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
“I’m not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.”
“And by-and-by Christopher Robin came to an end of the things, and was silent, and he sat there looking out over the world, and wishing it wouldn’t stop.”
“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”
“What I like doing best is Nothing.”
“We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.”