The Howl's Moving Castle is a brilliant animation movie by Studio Ghibli. It's based on British writer Dianna Wynne Jones' book by the same name. Set in the 19th century in Europe, the adventure is centered around a young girl, Sophie, who is the eldest of three sisters. Her life is uneventful and dull and she works at her family's hat shop.
However, her drab life takes a sharp turn when she meets Howl, a dashing but notorious wizard. Jealous of these two, the Witch of the Waste seeks vengeance and turns Sophie into a 90 year old woman. The curse makes her unable to tell anyone about it so she decides to leave home to go find a way to break it.
On the way, she encounters a living scarecrow who she names Turnip-Head. Turnip-Head leads her to Howl's flying castle. Here, she meets a fire demon called Calcifier who is also under a curse and they agree to break each other's curses. She also meets Markl, who is Howl's young apprentice. She takes up a job as a cleaning lady in the castle.
In the outside world, Sophie's country is in war with a neighboring country which has lost a prince. Later on, the prince turns out to be Turnip-Head. Also, Sophie and Calcifier manage to break each other's curses. Calcifier turns out to be a falling star that Howl gave his heart to making them connected. Howl gets his heart back and Sophie turns back into a young girl but her hair remains white.
The movie is one good fantasy classic intertwined with imagination, romance, excitement, terror, adventure, and horror themes. We hope you enjoy this collection of memorable quotes from the movie because if you don't, here's another curse for you, May All Your Bacon Burn!
![[Mrs. Pentstemmon] had said Sophie was a witch. Oddly enough, Sophie accepted this without any trouble at all. That explained the popularity of certain hats, she thought. It explained Jane Farrier’s Count Whatsit. It possibly explained the jealousy of the Witch of the Waste. It was as if Sophie had always known this. But she had thought it was not proper to have a magic gift because she was the eldest of three. Lettie had been far more sensible about such things.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2301.jpeg)
!["Why didn't he turn me out?" [Sophie] said, half to herself and half to Michael. "It beats me," said Michael. "But I think he goes by Calcifer. Most people who come in here either don't notice Calcifer or are scared stiff of him."](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2325.jpeg)
!["This is a bit much Sophie!" [Howl] said. "I do live here."](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2324.jpeg)
![Being old gave [Sophie] an entirely new view of Fanny. She was a lady who was still young and pretty, and she had found the hat shop as boring as Sophie did. But she had stuck with it and done her best, both with the shop and with the three girls—until Mr. Hatter had died. Then she had suddenly been afraid she was just like Sophie: old with no reason, and nothing to show for it.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2303.jpeg)
![[Sophie] settled herself comfortably in the chair while the demon thought. It thought aloud, in a little, crackling, flickering murmur, which reminded Sophie rather of the way she had talked to her stick when she walked here, and it blazed while it thought with such a glad and powerful roaring that she dozed again. […] The demon at length fell to singing a gentle, flickering little song. It was not in any language Sophie knew—or she thought not, until she distinctly heard the word “saucepan” in it several times—and it was very sleepy-sounding. Sophie fell into a deep sleep, with a slight suspicion that she was being bewitched now, as well as beguiled, but it did not bother her particularly. She would be free of the spell soon …](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2305.jpeg)
![‘I do not know, nor do I wish to know, about such contracts,’ [Mrs. Pentstemmon] said. Her cane wobbled again, as if she might be shuddering. Her mouth quirked into a line, suggesting she had unexpectedly bitten on a peppercorn. ‘But I now see,’ she said, ‘what has happened to the Witch. She made a contract with a fire demon and, over the years, that demon has taken control of her. Demons do not understand good and evil. But they can be bribed into a contract, provided the human offers them something valuable, something only humans have.‘](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2308.jpeg)
![Though [Wizard Howl] did not seem to want to leave the hills, he was known to amuse himself by collecting young girls and sucking the souls from them. Or some people said he ate their hearts. He was an utterly cold-blooded and heartless wizard and no young girl was safe from him if he caught her on her own. Sophie, Lettie, and Martha, along with all the other girls in Market Chipping, were warned never to go out alone, which was a great annoyance to them.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2298.jpeg)
![[Howl] came forth two hours later, out of a steam of verbena-scented spells. He was all in black. His suit was black, his boots were black, and his hair was black too, the same blue-raven black as Miss Angorian’s. His earring was a long jet pendant. Sophie wondered if the black hair was in honor of Mrs. Pentstemmon. She agreed with Mrs. Pentstemmon that black hair suited Howl. His green-glass eyes went better with it. But she wondered very much which suit the black one really was.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2295.jpeg)
![[The King] was quite alone, like an ordinary person. True, he sat with one leg thrust out in a kingly sort of manner, and he was handsome in a plump, slightly vague way, but to Sophie he seemed quite youthful and just a touch too proud of being a king. She felt he ought, with that face, to have been more unsure of himself. He said, “Well, what does the Wizard Howl’s mother want to see me about?” And Sophie was suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that she was standing talking to the King. It was, she thought dizzily, as if the man sitting there and the huge important thing which was the kingship were two separate things that just happened to occupy the same chair.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2294.jpeg)
![There was a time when everyone seemed to be telling me [that Sophie is under a spell]. Even Calcifer did—when I asked him. But do you honestly think I don’t know my own business well enough not to spot a strong spell like that when I see it? I had several goes at taking it off you when you weren’t looking. But nothing seems to work. I took you to Mrs. Pentstemmon, hoping she could do something, but she evidently couldn’t. I came to the conclusion that you liked being in disguise.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2293.jpeg)
![The most interesting thing was the talk from the customers. Nobody can buy a hat without gossiping. Sophie sat in her alcove and stitched and heard [...] that Wizard Howl’s castle had moved round to the cliffs again, really that man, whisper, whisper, whisper… The voices always dropped low when they talked of Wizard Howl, [...] Then there would be a fleeting, fearful whisper about the Witch of the Waste. Sophie began to feel that Wizard Howl and the Witch of the Waste should get together.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2226.jpeg)
![“...if the spell was off, I’d have my heart eaten before I could turn around.” “Don’t you want your heart eaten?” asked the fire. [...] “Naturally I don’t,” Sophie answered.](/_img/width=300,height=300,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2198.jpeg)
and then