P.L. Travers Quotes

A very excellent and worthy person, thoroughly reliable in every particular.

She sounds like you, Mary Poppins,' said Michael. 'So terribly pleased with herself!

Oh, go away! You're in my eyes," said John in a loud voice.

"Sorry!" said the sunlight. "I must move from East to West in a day. Sorry! Shut your eyes and you won't see me.

The Irish, as a race, have the oral tradition in their blood. A direct question to them is an anathema, but in other cases, a mere syllable of a hero's name will elicit whole chapters of stories.

it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us - the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star - we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember

This is the way the wheel turns, coming at last to full circle, with wild as well as tame at he crib; lion and turtle-dove together an barnyard beasts lying down with the fox. For wild and tame are but two hlaves and here, where all begins and ends, everything must be whole.
And always, among the sleepers, there must be somebody waking - somewhere, someone, waking and watchful. Or what would happen to the world..?

What is real and what is not? Can you tell me or I you? Perhaps we shall never know more than this - that to think a thing is to make it true.

she wore so many brooches and necklaces and earrings that she jingled and jangled just like a brass band.

Mary Poppins never told anybody anything. . . .

My family didn't like me going on the stage, and they didn't much like my being a writer, either.

I don't think that children, if left to themselves, feel that there is an author behind a book, a somebody who wrote it. Grown-ups have fostered this quotient of identity, particularly teachers. Write a letter to your favorite author and so forth. When I was a child I never realized that there were authors behind books. Books were there as living things, with identities of their own.

More and more I've become convinced that the great treasure to possess is the unknown.

And here it is worth while remembering, since we are discussing Not Writing for Children, that neither the Sleeping Beauty nor Rumpelstiltzkin was really written for children. In fact, none of the fundamental fairy stories was ever written at all. They all arose spontaneously from the folk and were transmitted orally from generation to generation to unlettered listeners of all ages.

You can ask me anything you like about my work, but I'll never talk about myself.

The same substance composes us
the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star
we are all one, all moving to the same end.

Once we have accepted the story we cannot escape the story's fate.

I'm not asleep," Jane reassured her. "I'm thinking about the story." "I heard every word," said Michael, yawning. The Park Keeper rocked, as if in a trance. "A Nex-plorer in disguise," he murmured, "sittin' in the midnight sun and climbin' the North Pole!" "Ouch!

You should trust the children; they can stand more than we can.

Michael, you shall have some syrup of figs.

What I want to know is this: Are the stars gold paper or is the gold paper stars?

With the word creative we stand under a mystery. And from time to time that mystery, as if it were a sun, sends down upon one head or another, a sudden shaft of light - by grace, one feels, rather than deserving, for it always is something given, free, unsought, unexpected.

Children's books are looked on as a sideline of literature. A special smile. They are usually thought to be associated with women. I was determined not to have this label of sentimentality put on me so I signed by my intials, hoping people wouldn't bother to wonder if the books were written by a man, woman or kangaroo.

And all the time he was enjoying his badness, hugging it to him as though it were a friend, and not caring a bit.

Do you thing, Mary Poppins ... Do you think that everything in the world is inside something else? My little Park inside the big one and the big one inside a larger one? Again and again? Away and away?

I hate being good.
-Mary Poppins

Do you think that everything in the world is inside something else? My little Park inside the big one and the big one inside a larger one? Again and again? Away and away?" She waved her arm to take in the sky. "And to someone very far out there - do you think we would look like ants?" "Ants

He knew, the moment he opened his eyes, that something was wrong but he was not quite sure what it was.

Carpet," said Mary Poppins, putting her key in the lock.

The eternal opposites meet and kiss. The wolf and the lamb lie down together, the dove and the serpent share one nest. The stars bend down and touch the earth and the young and the old forgive each other. Night and day meet here, so do the poles. The East leans over towards the West and the circle is complete.

were spilt on his bib, Jane and Michael could tell that the substance in the spoon this time was milk. Then Barbara had her share, and she gurgled and licked the spoon twice. Mary Poppins then poured out another dose and solemnly took it herself. "Rum punch," she said, smacking her lips and corking the bottle. Jane's eyes and Michael's popped with astonishment, but they were not given much time to wonder, for Mary Poppins, having put the miraculous bottle on the mantelpiece, turned to them. "Now," she said, "spit-spot into bed." And she began to undress them. They noticed that whereas buttons and hooks had needed all sorts of coaxing from Katie Nanna, for Mary Poppins they flew apart almost at a look. In less than a minute they found themselves in bed and watching, by the dim light from the night-light, the rest of Mary Poppins's unpacking being performed. From the carpet bag she took out seven flannel nightgowns, four cotton ones, a pair of boots, a

A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.

Well, what is she, then? And where did she come from?" cried the Fledgling shrilly, flapping his short wings and staring down at the cradle.
"You tell him, Annabel!" the Starling croaked.
Annabel moved her hands inside her blanket.
"I am earth and air and fire and water," she said softly. "I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning."
"Ah, such dark!" said the Starling softly, bending his head to his breast.
"It was dark in the egg, too," the Fledgling cheeped.
"I come from the sea and its tides," Annabel went on. "I come from the sky and it's stars, I come from the sun and it's brightness - "
"Ah, so bright!" said the starling, nodding.
"And I come from the forests of earth."
As if in a dream, Mary Poppins rocked the cradle - to-and-fro, to-and-fro with a steady swinging movement.
"Yes?" whispered the Fledgling.
"Slowly I moved at first," said Annabel, "always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly."
She paused for a moment, her blue eyes full of memories.
"And then?" Prompted the Fledgling.
"I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey.

I'm the Waiter, you know!

Could it be ... that the hero is one who is willing to set out, take the first step, shoulder something? Perhaps the hero is one who puts his foot upon a path not knowing what he may expect from life but in some way feeling in his bones that life expects something of him.

This is your new nurse, Mary Poppins.

There are worlds beyond worlds and times beyond times, all of them true, all of them real, and all of them (as children know) penetrating each other.

Michael knew now what was happening to him. He knew he was going to be naughty.

I shouldn't wonder if you didn't wonder much too much!

But at the very moment she was thinking these thoughts, adventure, as she afterwards told my Mother, was stalking her.

Nothing I had written before 'Mary Poppins' had anything to do with children, and I have always assumed, when I thought about it at all, that she had come out of the same wall of nothingness as the poetry, myth and legend that had absorbed me all my writing life.

My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us - the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star - we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child." "But

I think the idea of 'Mary Poppins' has been blowing in and out of me, like a curtain at a window, all my life.

There! Come down! What are you doing up there? Come down! We can't have the girl walking through the air. It's not natural!"

But Maia was going up and up.

Sir Christopher Wren's Cathedral

I cannot summon up inspiration; I myself am summoned.

I'll stay till the wind changes.

...it is the smallest house in the Lane. And besides that, it is the only one that is rather dilapidated and needs a coat of paint. But Mr. Banks, who owns it, said to Mrs. Banks that she could have either a nice, clean, comfortable house or four children. But not both, for he couldn't afford it. And after Mrs. Banks had given the matter some consideration she came to the conclusion that she would rather have Jane...and Michael...and John and Barbara, who were Twins and came last. So it was settled...

That's coral!" she cried in astonishment. "We must be down in the deeps of the sea!"
Well, wasn't that what you wanted?" said the trout. "I thought you wished you could see the sea!"
I did," said Jane, looking very surprised. "But I never expected the wish to come true."
Great oceans! Why bother to wish it then? I call that simply a waste of time. But come on! Mustn't be late for the party!

All right, indeed! That was hardly the word. All right, in her blue jacket with the silver buttons! All right with her gold locket round her neck! All right with the parrot-headed umbrella under her arm!

The Red Cow was very respectable, she always behaved like a perfect lady and she knew What was What.

Robertson Ay was sitting in the garden busily doing nothing.

He could smell her crackling white apron and the faint flavour of toast that always hung about her so deliciously.

Mary Poppins was very vain and liked to look her best. Indeed, she was quite sure that she never looked anything else.

So it was settled, and that was how the Banks family came to live at Number Seventeen, with Mrs. Brill to cook for them,

Tea is balm for the soul, don't you agree?

If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.

I've had quite a lot to conquer in myself apart from writing. Not that I've been a pure angel when I come to the end of it.

And when, at last, ... I stood in London with ten pounds in my hand - five of which I promptly lost - the ancestors dwelling in my blood who, all my life, had summoned me with insistent eldritch voices, murmured together, like contented cats.

Every child needs to have for itself not only its loving parents and siblings and friends of its own age, but a grown-up friend.

You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for - if you are honest - you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one.

Pooh, he's a ninkypoop!" "How do you know?" asked Jane, very interested. "I know because I heard Daddy call him one this morning!" said Michael, and he laughed at Andrew very rudely. "He is not a nincompoop," said Mary Poppins. "And that is that.

I never wrote my books especially for children.

I think that 'Mary Poppins' needs a subtle reader, in many respects, to grasp all its implications, and I understand that these cannot be translated in terms of the film.

When I was a child, love to me was what the sea is to a fish: something you swim in while you are going about the important affairs of life.

You can't expect two stars to drop in the same field in one lifetime