P. L. Travers Quotes

• Don't you know that everybody's got a Fairyland of their own?

  P. L. Travers

  Knows

  "Mary Poppins".

  54 Copy quote

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

  P. L. Travers

  Treasure, Convinced

  "P. L. Travers, The Art of Fiction No. 63" an interview by Edwina Burness, The Paris Review No. 86, Winter, 1982.

  19 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Children, Real, World

  13 Copy quote

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

  P. L. Travers

  Art, Book, Writing

  23 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Life, Hero, Feet

  "The World of the Hero". Book by P. L. Travers, 1976.

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Creativity, Light, Creative

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Children, Book, Men

  20 Copy quote

• Trouble trouble and it will trouble you.

  P. L. Travers

  Trouble

  P. L. Travers (2014). “Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection”, p.198, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• I hate being good. -Mary Poppins

  P. L. Travers

  Hate, I Hate, Mary

  10 Copy quote

• Stories are like birds flying, here and gone in a moment.

  P. L. Travers

  Bird, Flying, Gone

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Children, Sea, Swim

  13 Copy quote

• Perhaps we are born knowing the tales of our grandmothers and all their ancestral kin continually run in our blood repeating them endlessly, and the shock they give us when we first bear them is not of surprise but of recognition.

  P. L. Travers

  Running, Grandmother, Knowing

  17 Copy quote

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

  P. L. Travers

  Fate, Stories, Accepted

  15 Copy quote

• Child and serpent, star and stone — all one.

  P. L. Travers

  Stars, Children, Stones

  P. L. Travers (2014). “Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection”, p.175, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  21 Copy quote

• For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question.

  P. L. Travers

  Grateful, Thinking, Looks

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Teacher, Children, Book

  11 Copy quote

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

  P. L. Travers

  Soul, Tea, Agree

  14 Copy quote

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

  P. L. Travers

  Ask Me, Asks

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Hero, Race, Blood

  "No Word for Time: The Way of the Algonquin People". Book by Evan T. Pritchard, 2001.

  58 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Children, Book, Maturity

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  9 Copy quote

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

  P. L. Travers

  Stars, Gold, Paper

  P. L. Travers (2014). “Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection”, p.138, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

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

  P. L. Travers

  Tree, Want, Crosses

  P. L. Travers (2014). “Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  P. L. Travers

  Stars, Moving, Bird

  P. L. Travers (2014). “Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection”, p.174, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• 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 that when you no longer remember me, my child.

  P. L. Travers

  Stars, Children, Moving

  P. L. Travers (2014). “Mary Poppins: 80th Anniversary Collection”, p.174, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Who are you?" she inquired, as the cat passed by. I'm the cat that looked at a king," he replied. And I," she remarked with a toss of her head, "am the cow that jumped over the moon." Is that so?" said the cat. "Whatever for?" The cow stared. She had never been asked that question before. And suddenly it occured to her that there might something else to do than jumping over moons.

  P. L. Travers

  Kings, Cat, Moon

  10 Copy quote

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