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Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy Books

Author

Margaret Mahy was a renowned New Zealand children's author, known for her rich imagination and profound emotional depth in her works. Born on March 21, 1936, she passed away on July 23, 2012. Her writing career spanned over half a century, bringing joy to children around the world.

Maddigan's Fantasia

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The Catalogue of the Universe

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Kaitangata Twitch

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The Changeover

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Related Quotes

“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.”

Enemy Smile Command Vengeance

Book:The Changeover

Source: The Changeover

“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.”

Kissing Kiss Beautiful Writing Kissing Quotes

Author:Margaret Mahy

“...and after all, if I really wanted the bay to stay totally untouched, I wouldn't be living here myself, would I?" said her mother's voice out in the kitchen. I'd live in the city, and just enjoy the idea of the bay, pure and untouched between bare hills. But we built this house didn't we? We dug into the slope and levelled the space and poured the concrete foundations.”

Environmental Issues

Book:Kaitangata Twitch

Source: Kaitangata Twitch

“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.”

Garland Maddigans Fantasia Margaret Mahy Maddigan S Fantasia Timon And Eden

Book:Maddigan's Fantasia

Source: Maddigan's Fantasia

“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.”

Garland Maddigans Fantasia Margaret Mahy Maddigan S Fanstasia

Book:Maddigan's Fantasia

Source: Maddigan's Fantasia

“At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction.”

Thinking Mind Two Book Form Reader Patterns Opposition Interaction

Author:Margaret Mahy

“At this stage I am not involved with young adults as closely as many other writers. My children are grown up and my grandchildren are still quite young.”

Children Stills Young Stage Involved Adults Young Adult My Children Grandchildren My Grandchildren

Author:Margaret Mahy

“By the time ordinary life asserted itself once more, I would feel I had already lived for a while in some other lifetime, that I had even taken over someone else's life.”

Feels Taken Ordinary Lifetime Ordinary Life

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I don't think I prefer writing for one age group above another. I am just as pleased with a story which I feel works well for very small children as I do with a story for young adults.”

Thinking Feels Writing Wells Children Stories Age Young Groups Adults Young Adult Small Child

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I had to wait for a long time before I could support myself with writing. However, being a writer is what I have most wanted to be, from the time I was a child.”

Writing Children Long Wanted Waiting Support Long Time Most Wanted

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I hope I am not too repetitive. However, coming to terms with death is part of the general human situation.”

Humans Term Situation Repetitive

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I think I am too interested in my own ideas to copy anyone else's, but I find that other people's imagery, the flow of language in the outside world, games with words, and ideas about relationships are all most important to me.”

People Thinking World Important Ideas Games Language My Own Flow Copies Imagery Outside World

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.”

Thinking Way Writing Believe Character Able I Believe My Own Attitude Style Events Originals Work Out Affected Good Writers

Author:Margaret Mahy

“In a way, the characters often do take over.”

Author:Margaret Mahy

“It can certainly happen that characters in more sophisticated stories can "take over" as they develop and change the author's original ideas. Well, it certainly happens to me at times.”

Wells Ideas Character Stories Happens Originals Sophisticated Original Ideas

Author:Margaret Mahy

“There are certainly times when my own everyday life seems to retreat so the life of the story can take me over. That is why a writer often needs space and time, so that he or she can abandon ordinary life and "live" with the characters.”

Needs Character Stories Seems My Own Space Ordinary Everyday Abandon Take Me Everyday Life Retreat Time And Space Ordinary Life

Author:Margaret Mahy

“When you are writing, of course, you have to do all that writing and correcting for yourself. When I was a librarian it was expected that I would know about a wide range of books.”

Knows Writing Book Courses Wide Expected Range Librarian Correcting

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Of course there are big differences in length and character and vocabulary, but each level has its particular pleasures when it comes to the words one can use and the way one uses them.”

Way Character Use Bigs Courses Differences Pleasure Levels Particular Length Vocabulary

Author:Margaret Mahy

“The novels take longer to write than the picture book texts, and they do take a different sort of concentration. However, a very short, simple story that works well is just as exciting to me as any longer and more complex book.”

Writing Wells Book Different Stories Simple Novel Exciting Complexes Concentration Picture Books

Author:Margaret Mahy

“a man who builds a house never really dies.”

Men Dies House Architecture

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Canadians are Americans with no Disneyland.”

Canada Disneyland

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Do you think that clothes have a life of their own, and maybe have unsuitable affairs with opposite styles? I mean - you look at some people - their clothes go on flirting long after the people inside them have lost interest.”

People Thinking Looks Mean Long Lost Interest Style Goes On Clothes Opposites Affair Flirting

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Time was too much a part of love, for even in fairytales the proof of love was not its first moment, but its latest ones - that people lived happily ever after. Love at first sight was nothing but infatuation until proved by time.”

People Firsts Moments Too Much Sight Proof Love At First Sight Infatuation Fairytale Happily Ever After Ever After Proof Of Love

Author:Margaret Mahy

“If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing twice.”

Ifs Jobs Work Effort Best Effort Spanish Proverb

Author:Margaret Mahy

“There's a lot of things you can put up with, as long as you're not related to them.”

Book:The Catalogue of the Universe

Source: The Catalogue of the Universe

“I don't want to die, really. I'm interested in what happens next, so I've got to keep on.”

Want Happens Dies Next Wanting To Die

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Family!... You might just as well celebrate battle, murder and sudden death.”

Wells Might Battle Murder Celebrate Sudden Death

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I know things are unbearable but in spite of that we have to bear them.”

Knows Bears Spite Unbearable

Author:Margaret Mahy

“You can't say you want things to be simple and then in the next breath ask me to be honest.”

Want Next Asks Simple Honest Breaths Being Honest Ask Me

Author:Margaret Mahy

“New Zealand is the only country I know well enough to write about. It can sometimes lead to complications.”

Knows Writing Wells Country Sometimes Enough New Zealand Complication

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Will you still love me when I'm a monster?”

Love Stills Monsters

Book:Maddigan's Fantasia

Source: Maddigan's Fantasia

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

Said Stories Beast

Author:Margaret Mahy

“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.”

World Way Want Mind Customers Buying Shopping Centre Doubtful Buying Things

Book:The Catalogue of the Universe

Source: The Catalogue of the Universe

“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.”

World Writing Stories Reading Creative Passive

Author:Margaret Mahy

“It changes you for ever, but you are changing for ever anyway.”

Author: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?”

People Ifs World Two Use Suffering Involved Cruelty Vicious Wickedness Creeps Outside World

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I am really chained to my computer these days so I work in my bedroom, which is a room I have worked in for years and years. It is just as much an office as a bedroom, and during the day, my bed is rather like an extension of my desk.”

Years Rooms Bed Office Computer These Days Desks Bedroom Extensions Chained

Author:Margaret Mahy

“When I was a child I had a best friend who lived across the road from me. When her mother died unexpectedly it was like losing a member of my own family. I think I am still affected by the memory of that loss.”

Thinking Children Stills Mother Friendship Memories My Own Loss Members Losing Died Affected Mother Died

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Fear can give you urgent wings.”

Giving Fear Wings Urgent

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Being a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.”

Writing Made Different Seems Reading Reader Aspect Imaginative Enthusiastic Librarian Writing And Reading

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Anyone interested in the world generally can't help being interested in young adult culture - in the music, the bands, the books, the fashions, and the way in which the young adult community develops its own language.”

World Way Book Helping Young Culture Language Community Fashion Band Adults Young Adult

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Try not to become disappointed if someone doesn't like a story you've written. Stick up for your ideas, but listen to what other people say, too. They might have good advice.”

People Ifs Writing Trying Ideas Stories Might Written Advice Sticks Disappointed Good Advice

Author:Margaret Mahy

“My theory is that I decided to be a writer when I was about seven, but of course it is not as simple as that. Like most writers, I had to work at other things to earn a living and wrote mainly in the evenings, often very late at night, for many years.”

Years Night Courses Simple Theory Late Decided Seven Evening

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Perhaps every time anyone is praised it means that someone else somewhere is going to be ignored”

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Every writer has to find their own way into writing.”

Author:Margaret Mahy

“Writing for young children I find I often use particular jokes with words and exaggerated, funny events, but some of these haunt the more complex stories for older children too.”

Writing Children Stories Use Funny Young Events Particular Jokes Complexes Exaggerated Young Children

Author:Margaret Mahy

“I've never actually been a fighter myself - fighting tires me out and I'm not an efficient fighter anyway - but I have certainly seen other people have great complicated goes at one another.”

People Fighting Complicated Fighter Efficient Tire

Author:Margaret Mahy

“When you are reading, someone has done a lot of work on your behalf, someone has had ideas and has then written and corrected and improved them so that they can be shared.”

Ideas Done Reading Written Behalf

Author:Margaret Mahy

“It is a good idea to know which publishers publish which stories. For example, there is no sense in sending a picture book text to a publisher who does not publish picture books.”

Knows Doe Book Ideas Stories Example Brilliant Good Ideas Publishers Publish Brilliant Ideas Picture Books

Author:Margaret Mahy

“People can say what they like about the eternal verities, love and truth and so on, but nothing's as eternal as the dishes.”

People Eternal Dishes Housework Truth And Love

Book:The Catalogue of the Universe

Source: The Catalogue of the Universe

About the Author

Born: March 21, 1936
Died: July 23, 2012
Known for: Author
Quotes: 51

Related Topics

Writing Stories People Thinking Way Book Character Children Ideas Wells

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Maddigan's FantasiaRelated source material

The Catalogue of the UniverseRelated source material

Kaitangata TwitchRelated source material

The ChangeoverRelated source material

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