P. L. Travers Quotes

"Mary Poppins is not a fairy-tale."
"She's even better!" said Alfred loyally. "She's a fairy-tale come true."

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

If I were some people,” she remarked acidly, “I’d mind my own business!

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

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

Don’t you know,” she said pityingly, “that everybody’s got a Fairyland of their own?

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!

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

You must be very old!” said Jane,

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

Well, au revoir, one and all.

Mary Poppins sighed with pleasure, however, when she saw three of herself, each wearing a blue coat with silver buttons and a blue hat to match. She thought it was such a lovely sight that she wished there had been a dozen of her or even thirty. The more Mary Poppins the better.

"It was not very long afterwards that Michael woke up one morning with a curious feeling inside him. He knew, the moment he opened his eyes, that something was wrong but he was not quite sure what it was.
"What is today, Mary Poppins?" He enquired, pushing the bedclothes away from him.
"Tuesday," said Mary Poppins. "Go and turn on your bath. Hurry!" she said, as he made no effort to move. He turned over and pulled the bedclothes up over his head and the curious feeling increased.
"What did I say?" said Mary Poppins in that cold, clear voice that was always a Warning.
Michael knew now what was happening to him. He knew he was going to be naughty."

This is your new nurse, Mary Poppins.

She’s something special, you see. Not in the matter of looks, of course. One of my own day-old chicks is handsomer than Mary P. ever was — —