Hilary McKay Quotes

I always say a little prayer when I put cakes in the oven," remarked Eve, as she stopped to kiss Rose good-bye.
"What do you say?"
"I say, 'Please, God, don't let me forget I've put that cake in the oven.

You can't be disgusting to people just because they annoy you!" she exclaimed very crossly. "Thousands of people annoy me! Millions of people annoy millions of people all the time! ... You have to put up with them.

Her mood was suddenly in free fall, a state she knew all too well. A heaviness inside. A hollow loneliness. A need to either quarrel or cry. A downward plunge that could only be escaped by huge loss of temper, howling for her mother, or what people like teachers called going too far.
Trouble on the way.

Make a wish," said Indigo.
Rose made a wish and then asked, "Why?"
"That's what I always do. Wish on the moving ones."
"Does it matter how fast they move?"
"I don't think so."
"Can you wish on airplanes, too?"
"Oh, yes.

Rose" title="Hilary McKay Quotes: Make a wish," said Indigo.
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Rose,' he said. 'I suddenly feel old. I did not realize how the years had gone by. Do not try to look sympathetic because you cannot possibly understand.'

Yes, I can. I have just spent a week with Class 1 and they are like people from another plane, but really they are just me, five years ago. Indigo and Saffy and Sarah and Caddy have changed too. They are turning into the sort of people I used to call Grown Up and I cannot stop them, although I would if I could. I would slow them down, anyway. Sometimes I want to shout, 'Wait for me! Wait for me!'

Like I did when I was little and they walked too fast.

They always slowed down back then, however much of a hurry they were in, but I do not think they can turn back now.

So I do understand.

Rose's work of art took her all day, including two playtimes, story time, and most of lunch.
At the end of school it was stolen from her by the wicked teacher who had pretended to be so interested.
"Beautiful- what-is-it?" she asked as she pinned it high on the wall, where Rose could not reach.
"They take your pictures," said Indigo, ... when he finally made out what all the roaring and stamping was about. "They do take them ... Why do you want that picture so much?" he asked Rose.
"It was my best ever," said Rose furiously. "I hate school. I hate everyone in it. I will kill them all when I'm big enough."
"You can't just go round killing people," Indigo told her ...

Darling Daddy,
This is Rose.
Very good news. Caddy is going to marry Micheal. In case you have forgotten because you have not been home for so long he is the one with the ponytail and the earring that you do not like. And Caddy says she will have a white lace dress and three bridesmaids, Saffron and Sarah and me, and a big party for everyone, all her old boyfriends too. Fireworks. A band. A big tent called a marquee. But where will we put it? Carriages with white horses for us all to go to the church. Afterward Caddy and Micheal will go for a holiday to Australia to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Caddy has it all worked out and Mummy says Yes She Can Of Course You Can Darling Of Course You Must Do That. Saffron said That Will Cost a Few Weeks Housekeeping and Mummy said Yes But We Do Not Need to Worry About That. DADDY WILL PAY.
Love, Rose.

He says he needs mothering."
" ... Even if he didn't need mothering, which after all is only another way of saying he needs a slave.

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Humans cannot fly, but they can get the flying feeling. All they need to do is go out at night into a wild storm where the thunder roars like applause and the lightning throws itself in daggers of light at your bare feet and you suddenly find you are not afraid.

Suddenly Saffron had a picture in her mind of Sarah waiting at the bottom of the wall, and she was angry with herself.
Something changed in Saffron at that moment. She knew all about feeling left out ... That was why she wanted her angel so badly; proof that she mattered as much as anyone else.
"I couldn't really climb the wall," she said. "And if I could, what if I got caught? What would I say?"
"You'd think of something."
"No. It was a stupid idea. Let's try your way, early in the morning."
"Before breakfast?"
"Yes. All right Mission Control?"
"All right," said Sarah. "All right, Superhero.

There are all sorts of families," Tom's grandmother had remarked, and over the following few weeks Tom became part of the Casson family, as Micheal and Sarah and Derek-from-the-camp had done before him.
He immediately discovered that being a member of the family was very different from being a welcome friend. If you were a Casson family member, for example, and Eve drifted in from the shed asking, "Food? Any ideas? Or shall we not bother?" then you either joined in the search of the kitchen cupboards or counted the money in the housekeeping jam jar and calculated how many pizzas you could afford. Also, if you were a family member you took care of Rose, helped with homework (Saffron and Sarah were very strict about homework), unloaded the washing machine, learned to fold up Sarah's wheelchair, hunted for car keys, and kept up the hopeful theory that in the event of a crisis Bill Casson would disengage himself from his artistic life in London and rush home to help.

She had to go," said Rose. "It was because of her angel," said Indigo. "And because of Granddad," added Caddy. "And because of her nose stud." "And because her name isn't on the color chart." "She's lonely," said Rose. "That's why.

Rose had the sort of eyes that manage perfectly well with things close by, but entirely blur out things far away. Because of this even the brightest stars had only appeared as silvery smudges in the darkness. In all her life, Rose had never properly seen a star.
Tonight there was a sky full.
Rose looked up, and it was like walking into a dark room and someone switching on the universe.

Is this your holiday homework?" asked Sarah. "Don't do it, Rose! And Eve will write you a note to say it's iniquitous to give eight-year-olds homework. You will, won't you, Eve?"
"I could never spell 'iniquitous,' Sarah darling!"
"Hot concrete," said Rose mournfully, prodding her porridge.
"Write this," ordered Saffron. "'The ancient Egyptians are all dead. Their days are very quiet.' Porridge is meant to look like hot concrete. Eat it up ... Read the next question!" ...
"What would you say if you bumped into Tutankhamen in the street?"
"'Sorry!'" said Sarah at once. "Put that."
"We have to answer in proper sentences."
"'Sorry, but it was your fault! You were walking sideways!

Darling Daddy,
This is Rose.
Saffy says everyone says it is Indigo's fault that their Head has two black eyes and a swelled-up nose.
Love from Rose.
P.S. Sarah who is here says to tell you love from wheelchair woman too.
Rose's father telephoned especially to tell Rose not to call Sarah Wheelchair Woman.
"That's what she called herself," protested Rose. "She thought of it! Aren't you worried about what I told you about Indigo and the Head?"
"What?" asked Bill. "Oh that! Two black eyes and a swollen nose! I don't think I can believe that one, Rose darling!

She'll soon forget."
"Caddy," said Saffron impatiently, "she is headmistress of the private school! She's probably never forgotten anything in her whole life!

"Caddy," said Saffron" title="Hilary McKay Quotes: She'll soon forget."
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For Saffron," it said in shaky old writing on the damaged base, and on the other side, "Saffy's angel."
Saffron, picking up the broken fragments one by one, said it didn't matter. She hugged Rose and Indigo and Caddy and Sarah, and said again and again that it didn't matter, it didn't matter at all.

Darling Daddy,
This is Rose.
So flames went all up the kitchen wall. Saffron called the fire brigade and the police came too to see if it was a trick and the police woman said to Saffron Here You Are Again because of when I got lost having my glasses checked. But I was with Tom whose grandmother is a witch on top of the highest place in town.
Love, Rose.

Don't call me darling. I'm a driving instructor!

Michael allowed himself to look at Caddy for the first time since she had climbed into the car. It was a moment that he always put off for as long as possible because his concentration was never quite the same afterwards.

It had not seemed to matter that Rose was only eight years old.
"More than eight," said Rose. "Nearly nine."
"Darling Rose, even almost nearly nine-year-old's don't fall in love," said forgetful Caddy.
Caddy tried very hard to comfort Rose when Tom had left. It was not an easy job. It was like trying to comfort a small, unhappy tiger.
"Who said anything about falling in love?" growled Rose crossly. "Falling! Falling is by accident! I didn't fall in anything!"
"Oh. Right. Sorry, Posy Rose."
"And I am definitely not in love!

Even Dad likes it," said Caddy, and her father agreed that he did. In a way. Being a broad-minded, tolerant, artistic sort of person. Or so people told him ...
"Oh, yes?" said Saffron, rolling her eyes.
"Yes," said Bill, sounding a little bit peeved. "So you thank your lucky stars, my girl, because in some families you would have come home to very big trouble! A nose stud! At your age! If you come down with blood poisoning, don't blame me!

I can only drive slowly."
"That's all right."
"And I can only do left turns."
Rose ran downstairs, grabbed a road atlas, and ran triumphantly back up again. "Wales is left! Look! It's left all the way!

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Away from the front, where the supply lines ran, there were rest camps and first aid stations, and even patches of farmland. Often at that time of year you could hear skylarks over the fields. Soldiers remarked how strange it was that the birds should be there, but in fact the birds had been there for centuries.
The really strange thing was that the soldiers were there.

Sarah's father's shoulders began to shake. Tears poured down his cheeks. He took first one hand, and then the other, off the steering wheel to mop his eyes. He drove, weeping and groaning, at 140 kilometres an hour. Sarah's mother would not look at him. Sarah and Saffron stared, dumbstruck. Then it gradually dawned on them that he was laughing.

Kiran says (the shelf) is full of stories. If it is, then I like fairy stories. Fairy stories are fair. In them wishes are granted, words are enchanted, the honest and brave make it safely through to the last page and the baddies either have to give up their wickedness for ever and ever, no going back, or get ruthlessly written out of the story, which they hardly ever survive. Also in fairy stories there are hardly any of those half-good half-bad people that crop up so constantly in real life and are so difficult to believe in ...

Brain Juice was a recipe invented by Eve years before, when she had had to stay awake all day to look after Caddy and Indigo and Saffron, and all night to take care of the fragile and impermanent baby Rose. It was Coca-Cola with a great deal of instant coffee stirred into it. It was black and frothy and gritty, and it tasted like a primitive, medieval poison, but it banished sleep like magic.

Darling Daddy,
Poor Saffy. She had a big fight in the boys toilets on Monday, did you know? A very big fight and Sarah helped and it was terrifying. Said a boy in my class who has a brother who was there.
Saffy washed her hands and said Never Ever Never Dare You Touch My Brother. (Indigo). And the plug holes were blocked with hair.
Love from Rose.
-Sarah's mother has given us soup. Soup soup soup and then it was all gone.
L.F.R.

How can I give you nothing? Do you seriously expect me to buy nothing, wrap up nothing, stick a gift tag on nothing, send a card saying I really hope you like your nothing and lie awake worrying that the nothing I got you was the right color nothing you always anted? Have a heart!

I used to think that fifteen would be nearly grown up," said her sister Naomi, "until you started being it

He will grow up into one of those people who lean back to smile and jump so easily it looks like slow motion and steer cars with their knees and snitch roses from gardens to give to girls and write with their left hand and own two pairs of jeans and one jacket and fall in love from such a height and so hard and so completely that they never quite recover from the drop.
But at least he will have me to look out for him.

There were no rules, only consequences.