Margaret Mahy > Quotes

“It changes you for ever, but you are changing for ever anyway.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Changeover

“Reading is very creative - it's not just a passive thing. I write a story; it goes out into the world; somebody reads it and, by reading it, completes it.”
― Margaret Mahy

“There are always two people involved in cruelty, aren't there? One to be vicious and someone to suffer! And what's the use of getting rid of - of wickedness, say - in the outside world if you let it creep back into things from inside you?”
― Margaret Mahy, The Changeover

“For in some ways the world was like a shopping centre, and he himself was a doubtful customer, often ineffectual, being talked into buying things he didn't want, things indeed which nobody in their right mind would want to buy.”
― Margaret Mahy, Catalogue of the Universe

“Stamp, your name is to be Laura. I'm sharing my name with you. I'm putting my power into you and you must do my work. Don't listen to anyone but me. You are to be my command laid on my enemy. you'll make a hole in him through which he'll drip away until he runs dry. As he drips out darkness, we'll smile together, me inside, you outside. We'll crush him between our smiles.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Changeover

“I'm the Beast. You're the Beauty," he said. "It's all a story, isn't it?”
― Margaret Mahy, Maddigan's Fantasia

“It’s so dark - as if all the lights are just there to make the other places seem darker.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Wilful Eye

“What's happened to the world? she was thinking. Everything has turned terrible...and the bits that aren't terrible have gone mad. I don't understand anything anymore.”
― Margaret Mahy, Maddigan's Fantasia

“Will you still love me when I'm a monster?”
― Margaret Mahy , Maddigan's Fantasia

“Something is going to happen, Laura thought. She was going to be kissed. On one side of a kiss was childhood, sunshine,innocence, toys and, on the other, people embracing, darkness, passion and the admittance of a person who, no matter how loved, must always have a quality of otherness, not only to her confidence, but somehow inside her sealing skin.”
― Margaret Mahy

“Pulverized by literature,' thought Miss Laburnum. 'The ideal way for a librarian to die.”
― Margaret Mahy, Great Piratical Rumbustification & the Librarian and the Robbers

“These were true things, Laura knew, but they were only part of the truth which was something less orderly than Kate made it sound. Some parts of the full, disorderly truth were lodged in Kate and Laura like splinters of corroding steel. Their feelings had grown around the sharp, wounding edges which didn't hurt anymore but were still there, fossils of pain laid down in the mixed-up strata of memory.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Changeover

“Somewhere int he flesh of the earth the dreadful earthquake shuddered, the tide walked to and fro on the leash of the moon, rainbows formed, winds swept the sky like giant brooms piling up clouds before them, clouds which writhed into different shapes, melted into rain or darkened, bruised themselves against an unseen antagonist and went on their way, laced with forking rivers of lightning, complete with white electric tributaries. Out of this infinite vision an infinity of details could be drawn, but Sonny had settled on one, and from the endless series a particular beach was chosen and began to form around Laura - a beach of iron-dark sand and shells like frail stars, and a wonderful wide sea that stretched, neither green nor blue, but inked by the approach of night into violet and black, wrinkling with its own salty puzzles, right out to a distant, pure horizon.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Changeover

“This was the hidden machinery of life, not a clean, clinical well-oiled engine, monitored by a thousand meticulous dials, but a crazy, stumbling contraption made up of strange things roughly fitted together – things like a huge water tap, the dogleg stairs, cheese in the soap dish, and a crocheted tea cosy stiff with dirt and topped by a doll’s broken face.”
― Margaret Mahy, Memory

“All right," said Eden. "After all, we've got to hide somewhere. And even if they move on a bit faster than we can, they'll still leave signs, won't they?

"Yes, they'll drip blood and leave echoes of people laughing," said Timon in a dark voice. Eden looked at him apprehensively. But then Timon laughed himself. "Joking! Joking! Only joking!" he cried, and Eden nodded, echoing his laughter rather uncertainly.”
― Margaret Mahy, Maddigan's Fantasia

“She wanted everyone kind and affectionate, not passionate and tormenting – everything open, no maggoty secrets and silences, and no arguments with other, darker arguments hidden in them.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Tricksters

“Fear can give you urgent wings.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Wilful Eye

“When, suddenly, on an ordinary Wednesday, it seemed to Barney that the world tilted and ran downhill in all directions, he knew he was about to be haunted again.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“Anyhow, isn't it a bit wrong to think happiness is all smooth and serene. Isn't it mostly a great energetic struggle - you against the universe - a great whopping opponent, with the referee in its pocket?”
― Margaret Mahy, Catalogue of the Universe

“Then, at last, sitting on her stretcher-bed, she took from the very bottom of her pack an old peacock-blue scarf folded around a heavy, square book. She unwrapped it and opened it very carefully, as if guilty secrets might fall from between its pages like pressed flowers. This was Harry's secret. She was a writer.”
― Margaret Mahy

“You won’t forget that,” Claire assured her.

“I like things written down,” Tabitha mumbled. “Then you’ve got them for good.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“…But don’t be late, Troy, or I’ll…” She hesitated and laughed, not entirely happily. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever need to worry about you again, will I? I don’t suppose I’ve ever needed to worry over a magician.”

“There are always car accidents,” Tabitha declared cheerfully. “A car could come around the corner and… wallop! You’d need a terrific magician to get out of that one…”

“Or eagles dropping tortoises,” Troy added, looking amused. “That happened in Ancient Greece, you know. An eagle dropped a tortoise on some dramatist and killed him.”

“No eagles or tortoises here,” said Tabitha, “but a bit could fall off a plane.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“I don’t want to spin the world,” Barney said. “I don’t know what I want, but I do know it’s not that.”

“Nor do I!” Claire shook her head. “Poor Troy” If you can do almost anything, it’s all the harder to choose the right thing to do. Poor Cole, too – coming in like a lion and then staying like a pet lamb. I suppose if most of us were asked, we’d think that magicians would be free of care, but somehow or other there are always
rules.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“Your Barney?” Cole’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yours?”

“He’s mine all right!” Claire replied.

“Everyone in this family belongs to everyone else – belongs with everyone else, rather. I’ve looked after him for a year now – ironed his shirts, made his school lunches, told him stories. I made that dressing gown he’s wearing, whereas no one knew you were alive this time last week. But what matters most is that he wants to be ours and he doesn’t want to be yours. That’s what counts.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“Fattening!” said Troy, looking at Tabitha’s round face and plump arms.

“If I don’t mind being fat, I don’t see why other people should feel they’ve got to mind for me,” Tabitha replied cheerfully. “And pies have got some food value – they’ve got vitamins or something, haven’t they, Claire?”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“Honestly, Tabitha, the sooner your novel is written and published the better,” Claire said crispl, seeing Barney was made uncomfortable by these comments. “No more talking about Barney’s faint. He’s better now – that’s the main thing.”

“Ok- let’s talk about funerals,” Tabitha replied at once.”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“If people fainted from too much thinking I’d scarcely ever be conscious,” Tabitha began at once. “I think and think all the time, and I’ve never fainted – not once.” She looked over at Barney enviously. “Why do the best things always happen to other people and not to a promising writer?”
― Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

“Not that it will be easy for you," Miryam continued. "But for the moment - look - it's a wonderful, mysterious thing to be a girl."

And, looking at her reflection, Laura thought this might be true.”
― Margaret Mahy

“Practise make it perfect!”
― Margaret Mahy

“And, Heriot’s hand on Cayley’s shoulder, they set off through the moonlight midnight orchard, moving deeper and deeper into their overlapping fairy tales, vigilant and wary, for there were no safe places for the Magician and the Warrior.”
― Margaret Mahy, Young Warriors: Stories of Strength