Velveteen Rabbit Quotes

Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.' 'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.' 'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?' 'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Once you are real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.

He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.

When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.

When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.

You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

[O]nce you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." - The Skin Horse from The Velveteen Rabbit

Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. Sometimes it hurts, but when you are Real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once. You become. Once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.

Keep thinking back about what Mum said about being real and the Velveteen Rabbit book (though frankly have had enough trouble with rabbits in this particular house). My favorite book, she claims of which I have no memory was about how little kids get one toy that they love more than all the others, and even when its fur has been rubbed off, and it's gone saggy with bits missing, the little child still thinks it's the most beautiful toy in the world, and can't bear to be parted from it. That's how it works, when people really love each other, Mum whispered on the way out in the Debenhams lift, as if she was confessing some hideous and embarrassing secret. But, the thing is, darling, it doesn't happen to ones who have sharp edges, or break if they get dropped, or ones made of silly synthetic stuff that doesn't last. You have to be brave and let the other person know who you are and what you feel.

...because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.

The Velveteen Rabbit By Margery Williams

But Noah was like the Velveteen Rabbit. I would love his whiskers off, love him until he turned gray, until he lost shape. I would love him to death. And he would let me. Gladly.

He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.

Bunny to be comfortable.

Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.

Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit. 'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." "I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled. "The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.

You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. ― The Velveteen Rabbit

When you are Real you don't mind being hurt

But it's a little like that children's book, THE VELVETEEN RABBIT, but in reverse: if you're not loved for who you are, you cease to be real. Definitely for the other person, and maybe for yourself, too.

He said, " You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." -The Velveteen Rabbit

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

The winged lady was Princess Cat’s friend, a kind fairy who had ensured that the spell would one day be broken by a prince who loved her dearly.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” ― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.

Love doesn't need you to be extraordinary.

You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand...

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you," said the Skin Horse. " When you are real you don't mind being hurt. It doesn't happen all at once. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp corners. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose and very shabby. But these don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. Once you are Real, you can't unreal. It last forever

What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.

What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

The little country mouse looked at the trap. Then he looked at his cousin. “I think I will go home,” he said. “I’d rather have barley and grain and eat it in peace, than have brown sugar and cheese and eat in fear.” The two mice shook hands. The country mouse happily went back to his home. And there he stayed for the rest of his life.

Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. when a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.

There was something about the possession of a book that was important to me. Owning it gave me proprietary rights on the story. It meant that I could read as quickly or as slowly as I liked. No expectations, no deadlines, no proscriptions on bent spines or crumpled pages. I was not gentle on my books. I read while I ate, I read in the bathtub. At night, I rolled over on top of my books that had fallen between the covers as I dozed. For me, the worn pages and tattered covers were a sign of devotion. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, the books I read were only real when they were loved. And I understood that love was not always gentle.

Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. —The Velveteen Rabbit Margery Williams

The Velveteen Rabbit is not a compelling theoretical framework for the physical universe,

Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." - The Velveteen Rabbit

Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse. The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." "I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

I want to be softened, not stiff. Pliable, not rigid. I don't want anyone to look at my life and think it is perfect or, worse, that I want them to think it is perfect. Instead, I want anything that is unapproachable or harsh in me to be scrubbed away by the salt and the sand, revealing the imperfections, the brokenness, the cracks. Not because I am proud of those parts, but because I know it is real. Like the Skin Horse or the Velveteen Rabbit, I am shabby because I live life, because I am loved, and because it is all work - living and loving and being loved, being transformed, being worn and faded

Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

In the classic children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed animal becomes “real” because of a child’s love. Tamagotchis do not wait passively but demand attention and claim that without it they will not survive. With this aggressive demand for care, the question of biological aliveness almost falls away. We love what we nurture; if a Tamagotchi makes you love it, and you feel it loves you in return, it is alive enough to be a creature.

It took me many more years of prospective follow-up, and many more years of emotional growth, to learn to take love seriously. What it looks like—God, a nurse, a child, a good Samaritan, or any of its other guises—is different for everybody. But love is love. At age seventy-five, Camille took the opportunity to describe in greater detail how love had healed him. This time he needed no recourse to Freud or Jesus. Before there were dysfunctional families, I came from one. My professional life hasn’t been disappointing—far from it—but the truly gratifying unfolding has been into the person I’ve slowly become: comfortable, joyful, connected and effective. Since it wasn’t widely available then, I hadn’t read that children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit, which tells how connectedness is something we must let happen to us, and then we become solid and whole. As that tale recounts tenderly, only love can make us real. Denied this in boyhood for reasons I now understand, it took me years to tap substitute sources. What seems marvelous is how many there are and how restorative they prove. What durable and pliable creatures we are, and what a storehouse of goodwill lurks in the social fabric. . . . I never dreamed my later years would be so stimulating and rewarding. That convalescent year, transformative though it was, was not the end of Camille’s story. Once he grasped what had happened, he seized the ball and ran with it, straight into a developmental explosion that went on for thirty years. A

How about this?” he said. “For years Mom invested Pupkin with attention and focus and time, and like in The Velveteen Rabbit, love brings things to life. She put all her emotional energy into Pupkin, and some of it bled into the others, and as I believe a great man of science once said, energy can be neither created nor destroyed.” “The Velveteen Rabbit is not a compelling theoretical framework for the physical universe,” Louise said. “It’s a children’s story.” “So’s the Bible,” Mark said. “But you got people making laws and killing each other over it every day.” “That’s a false equivalency,” Louise said. “I don’t subscribe to your Velveteen Rabbit theory of the universe.

The things people love about you aren’t necessarily the things you want to be loved for. They decide they like you for reasons completely outside your control, of which you’re often not even conscious: it’s certainly not because of the big act you put on, all the charm and anecdotes you’ve calculated for effect. (And if your act does fool someone, it only makes you feel like a successful fraud, and harbor some secret contempt for them — the contempt of a con artist for his mark — plus now you’re condemned to keep up that act forever, lest she Realize.) As The Velveteen Rabbit teaches, we don’t become fully real except in other people’s eyes, and in their affections. At some point you have to accept that other people’s perceptions of you are as valid as (and probably a lot more objective than) your own.

For just a moment, I thought about it. I pictured how it would be, dusting off the rusty Romance Lindsey, long hidden in some box in the back closet of my mind, under piles of more important boxes filled with Work Lindsey, and Mommy Lindsey, Divorce Court Lindsey, and now Shared Custody Lindsey, and Depressed Insane Lindsey. Was Romance Lindsey even there anymore? Probably not. She had sat forgotten for so long that, like the Skin Horse and the Velveteen Rabbit, she had ceased to be real. I never even thought about her anymore. Until now. Which was a bad sign that the boxes were getting jumbled up and Control Freak Lindsey needed to get to work. .... He grinned wickedly, and my stomach fluttered like a firecracker the instant the chain reaction starts inside the casing. Romance Lindsey and Tomboy Lindsey grabbed Mommy Lindsey, shoved her into a box, and sat down on the lid. Control Freak Lindsey ran away screaming.

I hung a framed watercolor of the Velveteen Rabbit I had painted for him while I was pregnant.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." -- The Velveteen Rabbit

One of the favourite books from the lending library is The Velveteen Rabbit, written by Margery Williams in 1922. Rabbit asks his friend the Skin Horse, ‘What is real?’ ‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ the Skin Horse replies. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’ I have read this book many times and this one sentence reminds me of the times in my life when I really came to understand the meaning of the word real.

Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

I lay down My life for the sheep. —John 10:15 (NAS) Just before Easter, I made special efforts setting the dining room table. I’d purchased a pastel tablecloth with cute rabbits and decorated eggs on it. My ancient, flowered dishes, which had been my mother’s, blended in perfectly. For a centerpiece, I decided on a lavender, velveteen rabbit and purple irises from our yard. Still, I wasn’t quite satisfied with my handiwork. Something seemed to be missing. The back door opened and I heard, “Mom.” My son Jeremy had stopped by after getting off from work. We sat down in the living room. “Anything happen at the restaurant today?” “Yeah, it did. Today I served a fellow. We made small talk. He was alone. When I went to clear off his table, he handed me a bill. I almost just stuck it in my pocket. I don’t usually look at tips. But I did this time.” “And?” “A twenty!” “Wow.” “I ran after him, almost to his car. ‘Sir, you gave me a twenty by mistake.’ He turned to me, smiled, and said, ‘No mistake. I wanted you to have it.’ ‘But it’s way too much. You don’t have to do this.’ “Looking right into my eyes, he said, ‘Jesus didn’t have to go to the Cross either.’” After my son left, I found a small wooden cross and stood it by the purple irises on the dining room table. Jesus, keep me near the Cross—daily. —Marion Bond West Digging Deeper: 1 Cor 1:18; Gal 6:14; Col 2:14

The Velveteen Rabbit is not a compelling theoretical framework for the physical universe,” Louise said. “It’s a children’s story.” “So’s the Bible,” Mark said. “But you got people making laws and killing each other over it every day.

Like the Velveteen Rabbit of Margery Williams's perennially best-selling children's book, plush makers are animated by the prospect of their creations becoming the first thing a child loves and values.

It’s a book about how a toy rabbit wants to be real and tries to do it through the love of his owner. In the end, he finds out that he is the only one that can make himself real. That’s you. You’re the velveteen rabbit, Noah. Juju read it to me at the store and I knew I had to get it for you.” “Bran, this is such a great gift. Thank you.” “I know Father is hard on us. But I also know that we always find our way. We have each other. That’s all that matters. I don’t care what Father says. Mother doesn’t speak. It’s you and Jos that I care about, Noah. That’s all that matters to me.” “Thanks, Bran. I’ll cherish this forever.” “The book says once you are real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand you. I promise that no matter what, I’ll always understand, Noah.

Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts forever.