Top 15 P. L. Travers Quotes

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

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

"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."

I hate being good.
-Mary Poppins

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

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

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.

There was something strange and extraordinary about her – something that was frightening and at the same time most exciting.

Next time you must stay for tea and we'll all sit together on a rock and sing a song to the moon

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.

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

Mary Poppins never told anybody anything. . . .

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.

"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!

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