A.A. Milne

"Good morning, Pooh Bear", said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning", he said. "Which I doubt", said he.

There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there.

You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

"Hello Rabbit, is that you?"

"Let's pretend it isn't", said Rabbit, "and see what happens."

"I have been Foolish and Deluded," said he, "and I am a Bear of No Brain at All."

"If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee."

Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey."

And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it." So he began to climb the tree.

"And how are you?", said Winnie-the-Pooh. (...)

"Not very how", he said. "I don't seem to have felt at all how for a long time."

Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit.

There isn't any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I'm not at the bottom,

I'm not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop.

Halfway up the stairs

Isn't up,

Isn't down.

It isn't in the nursery,

It isn't in the town.

And all sorts of funny thoughts

Run round my head:

"It isn't really

Anywhere!

It's somewhere else

Instead!"

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think about it.

"It is hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal."

Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, "But don't bother about the bread, please."