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"New Zealand is the only country I know well enough to write about. It can sometimes lead to complications."
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"It's the only sport that's played in every country in the world. It's played and watched all over the world, it's the most popular sport in probably 90% of the countries, and then with the World Cup, you have the most viewed tournament of any sport in the world."

"The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself."

"However, in recent years our nation has seen a sizable influx of illegal immigration that at best highlights some alarming inadequacies and at worst indicates a broken system."

"You know, having been an election monitor in countries across the world, I can tell you that we would never certify another country's election if it had as many flaws in place as we had in Florida."

"September 11 is one of our worst days but it brought out the best in us. It unified us as a country and showed our charitable instincts and reminded us of what we stood for and stand for."

"Swaziland is a small part of south-east Africa, the last country in the continent to gain its independence."
Explore more quotes by Margaret Mahy

"Ellis's understanding of himself and the world around him certainly develops because of his adventures, and part of that development comes through recognizing other people for what they are."

"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."

"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."

"I once knew a house rather like The Land of Smiles - an old house occupied by a varied collection of young people, mainly students. However none of these people were true models for the characters in the book, though their way of life may have been."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."
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