Quotes from Hilary McKay

Very helpful, I must say. Look at them in the eye and shout, and they understand every word..." (Mr. Warbeck in Sienna, talking about local Italians.)

He's an artist in London. We don't see him much." Tom gave him one of his quick, considering glances and asked, "Doesn't he live with you?" "No," said Indigo, finally saying out loud what he had known now for a long, long time. "Not really. Not anymore.

Darling Daddy, Poor Saffy. She had a big fight in the boys toilets on Monday, did you know? A very big fight and Sarah helped and it was terrifying. Said a boy in my class who has a brother who was there. Saffy washed her hands and said Never Ever Never Dare You Touch My Brother. (Indigo). And the plug holes were blocked with hair. Love from Rose. -Sarah's mother has given us soup. Soup soup soup and then it was all gone. L.F.R.

I always say a little prayer when I put cakes in the oven," remarked Eve, as she stopped to kiss Rose good-bye. "What do you say?" "I say, 'Please, God, don't let me forget I've put that cake in the oven.

Brain Juice was a recipe invented by Eve years before, when she had had to stay awake all day to look after Caddy and Indigo and Saffron, and all night to take care of the fragile and impermanent baby Rose. It was Coca-Cola with a great deal of instant coffee stirred into it. It was black and frothy and gritty, and it tasted like a primitive, medieval poison, but it banished sleep like magic.

Michael allowed himself to look at Caddy for the first time since she had climbed into the car. It was a moment that he always put off for as long as possible because his concentration was never quite the same afterwards.

There were no rules, only consequences.

He says he needs mothering." "....Even if he didn't need mothering, which after all is only another way of saying he needs a slave.

This was school, and everything he'd feared. Barren, jarring, stale, always lonely and never alone. He had known it would be bad, and it was.

There were not rules, only consequences

Away from the front, where the supply lines ran, there were rest camps and first aid stations, and even patches of farmland. Often at that time of year you could hear skylarks over the fields. Soldiers remarked how strange it was that the birds should be there, but in fact the birds had been there for centuries. The really strange thing was that the soldiers were there.

Gems and jewels and sparkly things. Perfumes and powders and rouges and ribbons. Waltzes, polkas and polonaises. And princes for partners, And most of all, they liked satin dancing shoes.

Off with our nightgowns, and on with the silks and taffetas! Velvet and damask and lace like foam! Buttoned gloves, coral beads, pearl rings, diamond bracelets! Perfumes, powders, gilt tiaras and satin dancing shoes!

Sarah's father's shoulders began to shake. Tears poured down his cheeks. He took first one hand, and then the other, off the steering wheel to mop his eyes. He drove, weeping and groaning, at 140 kilometres an hour. Sarah's mother would not look at him. Sarah and Saffron stared, dumbstruck. Then it gradually dawned on them that he was laughing.

Derek turned out to be spectacularly good at fixing cars, and he cured the Casson one almost immediately with the simple but highly effective addition of gasoline.

She considered it a great relief when a few days later she heard that her abandoned husband had caught pneumonia.

Do you think it (hedgehog) can possibly have gone to Heaven?" This was Ruth's ritual question when confronted with death and Naomi was always firm. "No", she said at once. "Because what would it do when it got there? Eat slugs and snails that had gone to hell? It's just died, that's all. No good getting all drippy about it.

You look terrible,' said Saffy sternly. 'I always look terrible at two o'clock in the morning,' Mummy replied, splashing cold tap water on her face.

Please do not close the window, Indy, fresh air kills germs.' 'Hypothermia,' said Indigo, not obeying, 'kills people. And anyway, Rose's lips are going blue.

Miss Farley recognized him. 'We must find you a seat near the front!' she cried, loud enough for the whole school to hear and abandoning her raffle tickets in her excitement. 'Recorders! One moment please while we find a place for Baby Jesus's grandad!

Far away can be too far away, when the wrong people are left behind.

It isn't the story, because it has ended too soon, of how Granny returned the huntsman to the village in her wheelbarrow, and went back to her happy life in the forest as a semi-retired smuggler, with Diamond for company. Nor is it the ridiculous mixed-up tale told by the huntsman of a wolf in bed, and Granny eaten, and Red Riding Hood saved by his own brave self, rushing in with an axe.

School is no longer a peaceful place where you can catch up on your daydreaming, forget your family ( or what is left of your family) and talk about things like Dr. Who and how to stop GLobal Warming (we all know how but we don't stop it) and if it is okay for boys to wear pink and all those other things we talk about.

You surely won't turn him into a frog?" asked the Queen. (For this had been known to happen in royal families before.) "Certainly not!" said the Dust Grey Fairy. "I'm sure he would enjoy it, lurking around the lily leaves waiting to be kissed, but he would learn no manners at all!" "Nor send him to sleep for a hundred years?" "That's for girls only," said the Dust Grey Fairy. "Boys are lazy enough as it is." "True, true," admitted the Queen.