Half Magic Quotes

“Still, even without the country or a lake, the summer was a fine thing, particularly when you were at the beginning of it, looking ahead into it. There would be months of beautifully long, empty days, and each other to play with, and the books from the library.”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“In the summer you could take out ten books at a time, instead of three, and keep them a month, instead of two weeks. Of course you could take only four of the fiction books, which were the best, but Jane liked plays and they were nonfiction, and Katharine liked poetry and that was nonfiction, and Martha was still the age for picture books, and they didn’t count as fiction but were often nearly as good. Mark hadn’t found out yet what kind of nonfiction he liked, but he was still trying. Each month he would carry home his ten books and read the four good fiction ones in the first four days, and then read one page each from the other six, and then give up. Next month he would take them back and try again. The nonfiction books he tried were mostly called things like “When I was a Boy in Greece,” or “Happy Days on the Prairie”—things that made them sound like stories, only they weren’t. They made Mark furious. “It’s being made to learn things not on purpose. It’s unfair,” he said. “It’s sly.” Unfairness and slyness the four children hated above all.”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“The trouble was that the adventure with Sir Launcelot had seemed to point a moral.
And if you have ever had a moral pointed at you, you will know that it is not a completely pleasant feeling. You are grateful for being improved, and you hope you will remember and do better next time, but you do not want to think about it very much just now.”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“Really!” said the fat lady to Jane and Katharine and Martha, who were wedged tightly against her. “Stop shoving.” “I’m sorry, but we haven’t time for you now,” said Jane to the fat lady. And she wished her twice as far as where she belonged. The lady was quite annoyed to find herself suddenly at home in her own kitchen, and later sued the newspaper for witchcraft. But she was never able to prove her case, and anyway that does not come into this story. Back in her office, the children’s mother sat staring palely at the place where the lady had been.”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“Who steals my purse steals trash,” he said, “but who steals my sword steals honor itself, and him will I harry by wood and by water till I cleave him from his brainpan to his thighbone!”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“What would twice as much as never having to learn fractions be?”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“there's never only one explanation," said the rather small gentleman. "It depends on which one you want to believe!”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“you're going to argue, and Jane usually was, you want people to line up all their objections at a time; then you can knock them all down at once. But”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“The next best thing to having it actually happen to you is to read about it.”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“And their mother and Mr. Smith stood looking at each other and didn't see the shining or hear the singing or sense the fragrance because all they saw was the light of each other's eyes, and all they heard was the beating of each other's heart and all they felt was their love for each other. . . Now that they had their heart's desire, they had no need of any other magic.”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic

“the”
― Edward Eager, Half Magic