Melina Marchetta quotes:

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  • So between you and me," I tell Justine on the phone that night, "we're either bitchy or stupid." "Oh God," she moans. "Everyone thinks I'm an idiot." "Thanks!

  • I need voices of reason and of hysteria and of empathy. I need to have an Alanis moment. I need advice from Elizabeth Bennett. I need Tim Tams and comfort food.

  • Back in Georgie's attic, he yanks the phone out of the socket and begins scrolling down the names under dialed calls, praying to anyone who will listen. God. Baby Jesus. Saint Thomas the doubter. Saint Whoever, patron saint of losers. Praying, Please, please, don't let it be true. The first name shatters him. The second makes his head spin.

  • A clean house will result in peace in the Middle East as well.

  • It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.

  • And suddenly I know I have to go. But this time without being chased by the Brigadier, without experiencing the kindness of a postman from Yass, and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breath for the rest of my life.

  • According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I'll thank him for the advice.

  • But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for.

  • Once she made him watch Pride and Prejudice and for ages he would re-word Mr Bingley's apology to Jane Bennet, saying, 'I've been an inexplicable fool', for anything from losing his keys to burping out loud. Her reply to anything she wanted to do was Jane Bennet's response to Bingley's marriage proposal, 'A thousand times yes.

  • I live on the Jellicoe Road. Where trees make canopies over-head and where you can sit at the top of them and see forever.

  • I think if I'm ever asked to recall what Year 12 was all about, I'll remember it as one big cappuccino experience.

  • I've been passionate about two things in my life. One was Christina Alibrandi. The other is Josephine Alibrandi.

  • Everything's going to be fine. She'll be back at work soon. Let's just keep the house clean." Oh yeah, I want to say, because a clean house will result in peace in the Middle East as well.

  • This isn't romance. This isn't a declaration of love or affirmation of friendship. This is something more.

  • I don't say anything and he casually leans against my desk, picking up the novel that's sitting there. "It's bullshit," he tells me, flicking through it. "There's no such thing as Atticus Finch." I shrug. "It'd be nice if there was, though.

  • Don't you ever touch my car again," Santangelo says with the same fury he had on his face when Jonah Griggs madecomments about his mother.Raffy touches the car with her finger in a very dramatic way."You've just made our hit list," he says, getting a hanky out of his pocket and cleaning off some imaginary mark.

  • Don't you ever touch my car again," Santangelo says with the same fury he had on his face when Jonah Griggs madecomments about his mother.Raffy touches the car with her finger in a very dramatic way."You've just made our hit list," he says, getting a hanky out of his pocket and cleaning off some imaginary mark."

  • I don't despise you for what you allowed to happen to me. I despise you because when I was released, you refused to be found and I needed you more than anything in my life. Not to mend my broken bones, Arjuro. I needed my brother to mend my broken spirit.

  • I think that we vote, not to get the best party in, but to keep the worst party out.

  • It's hard to explain what happens when jazz and punk fuse with a violin twist but it works. Probably because Anson Choi takes off his shirt while he's playing the saxophone. Whoever's not chatting up a Cadet or a girl from Darling House or playing chess with the guys is watching the band. I turn into a groupie.

  • This is the best night of my life," Raffy says, crying. "Raffy, half our House has burnt down," I say wearily. "We don't have a kitchen." "Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?" she asks. "We can double up in our rooms and have a barbecue every night like the Cadets." Silently I vow to keep Raffy around for the rest of my life.

  • The string slices into the skin of his fingers and no matter how tough the calluses, it tears. But this beat is fast and even though his joints are aching, his arm's out of control like it has a mind of its own and the sweat tat drenches his hair and face seems to smother him, but nothing's going to stop Tom. He;s aiming for oblivion.

  • Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories.

  • I'm very disturbed to find out that the leader of the Townies has a soul and I'm beginning to develop a bit of a crush on him.

  • You're going to set us all on fire, you homicidal feral fruitcake.

  • then she was laughing. They both were, and the savage teeth were the most joyous sight Phaedra had seen for a long time. It was as if they were dancing. There it was. Suddenly the strangeness of Quintana of Charyn's face made sense. Because it was a face meant for laughing, but it had never been given a chance.

  • I don't believe you should be a virgin when you get married,' Sera said. 'You should experiment. Men do''Yes, but only if you're in love with them,' I said.

  • All I need to understand is the unwritten law of warriors," he said firmlyAnd women and children are never sent to do our work without our protection." He pointed to the trees, emphaticallyThat's the language I share with them."

  • I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary."I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one."

  • Because photos are testimony that someone did live. A reminder of past we may have loved or hated. A piece of our lives."

  • Josie, life is not a Mills and Boon book. People fall out of love. People disappoint other people and they find it very hard to forgive.

  • The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, "We're pregnant." I want to go around the neighborhood saying, "We're depressed." If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.

  • God knows what possessed me, but having that science book in my hand propelled me to immediate action. So I hit her with it.

  • What do you want from me?" he asks. What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him. More.

  • Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?" Did I wonder? When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know? Wonder dies.

  • Hold my hand because I might disappear.

  • Maybe memories should be left the way they are.

  • A home to come back to every day of their lives. Where they would all belong or long to be. A place on the Jellicoe Road.

  • So why would I want someone to be my everything when one day they might not be around?" Jellicoe Road

  • His father's made us paint half this town and if we stick around any longer he'll make us paint the rest of it." -Jonah Griggs

  • The next night he asked Jonah if he could take $9.49 out of Jonah's secret stash that only Danny and his mum and Jack knew about. Jonah kept it in his sock drawer next to a photograph of Jonah and a girl with sad eyes, taken in one of those railway station photo booths.

  • These people have history and I crave history. I crave someone knowing me so well that they can tell what I'm thinking. Jonah Griggs takes my hand under the table and links my fingers with his and I know that I would sacrifice almost anything just to keep this state of mind, for the rest of the week at least.

  • But you pashed Jonah Griggs and he's the leader of the enemy.

  • Girls under the age of fourteen are the most frightening creatures I have ever come across. - Jonah Griggs

  • I want to be sitting in front of my computer, where you can press a button to block out your junk mail. These two are my junk mail.

  • Sometimes I feel like a junkie. One minute something happens in my life and I'm flying. Next minute I take a nose-dive and just as I'm about to hit the ground with full force something else will have me flying again.

  • She's tired and leans her head on his shoulder, which is the resting place for all their heads, but when Justine and Siobhan and Francesca use his body so shamelessly he doesn't feel the need to turn his head and press his mouth against their hair.

  • It's my birthday today. I'm not 17 anymore. The 17 Janis Ian sang about where one learns the truth. But what she failed to mention is that you keep on learning truths after 17 and I want to keep on learning truths till the day I die.

  • And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die.

  • I look around for the counter that sells my scent, but I'm so petrified that if I spray it in the air, nothing will come out. And then Mia's scent seems to fade away and everything else fades away with it and I know that all I have to do to recapture it is press the spray button again.

  • Sit back and get some sleep. Oh great. So if we have an accident and I'm asleep my resistance toward fighting death will be down and I'll wake up in a morgue.

  • She was the most beautiful woman in the world. If she was alive I'd probably be a better person.

  • No, no, no, no,no,' he gasped. 'You can't bring up your mum and dad while your hand is down there, Finke

  • Promise me you'll never stop dreaming.

  • I'm not interested in those who do me wrong. There's not enough time in the day for them.

  • It's called peaceful coexistence, Santangelo. You should try it and if it works we may sell the idea to the Israelis and Palestinians

  • I recognise Santangelo's dad, who saves police brutality for when he gets to his son.

  • Unexpectedly, a fierce sense of protectiveness comes over me. Except I fight it back because I can hardly look after myself these days.

  • We pass more women with swollen bellies hurrying towards the godshouse and Arjuro presses a kiss to Tariq's outstretched fingers. 'She's mocking me, runt of our litter,' Arjuro tells him. 'The Oracle is mocking me for choosing a man to share my bed. And her punishment is that I spend the rest of eternity staring between the legs of women.

  • You said to me once that you weren't what I dreamed of. You were right. You surpass everything I dreamed of. Even the rot in you that's caused you to do shameful things. Some men let the rot and guilt fester into something ugly beyond words. Few men can turn it into worth and substance. If you're gods' blessed for no other reason, it's for that.

  • Because photos are testimony that someone did live. A reminder of past we may have loved or hated. A piece of our lives.

  • City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure.

  • She and me? We the same in some fings. We live. The others, those orphan kids, they dead. Because she and me, we want to live and we do anyfing to make that happen. That's the difference between us and the others.

  • Sometimes you don't let us talk about how we're feeling. If we feel scared, you say, 'Nothing to worry about, guys,' but that doesn't make it go away. It makes it grow.

  • I still wake with your name on my lips every morning.

  • There's not much you need to know about the world. Except how to use a sword and trust very few.

  • You can't go around feeling too much", Captain Travanion had explained watching a moment to ensure the man was indeed dead. "Because if you feel too much, enough to want to kill them so savagely then one day you are going to feel enough to spare their lives.

  • If there was one weapon he had against these savages, it was not acknowledging their existence.

  • It's Thursday afternoon, and we have sports. These are the choices for the girls: watching an invitational cricket game; studying in one of the classrooms; or watching the senior rugby league. As you can imagine, I'm torn.

  • There's nothing to took forward to any more if you don't have dreams," he said. "Because dreams are goals and John might have run out of goals. So he died.

  • Truth is dangerous.

  • The people I'm stuck with in my life now aren't sucking the life out of me, they just suck.

  • I can't believe I said it out loud. The truth doesn't set you free, you know. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed and defenseless and red in the face and horrified and petrified and vulnerable. But free? I don't feel free. I feel like shit.

  • His voice is deep and gravelly. I once heard one of the girls say that he had the voice of a sex god, but because I've never really heard what a sex god sounds like, I can't verify that.

  • When I turn around, he cups my face in his hands and he kisses me so deeply that I don't know who is breathing for who, but his mouth and tongue taste like warm honey. I don't know how long it lasts, but when I let go of him, I miss it already.

  • Some of us weren't born for rewards, Froi. We were born for sacrifices.

  • Do you think people have noticed that I'm around?" "I notice when you're not. Does that count?

  • It's like you have a plan and someone comes along and makes you want to change it all, but you still like your first plan, no matter how fantastic the second one makes you feel.

  • Why do I feel like something's missing in my life without them and they don't feel the same about me?

  • I walk down the steps of the verandah towards her and with shaking hands she holds my face between them, sobbing, "Look at my beautiful girl.

  • And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die. But there's a joy and an abundance of everything, like information and laughter and summer weather and so many stories.

  • If you weren't driving, I'd kiss you senseless," I tell him. He swerves to the side of the road and stops the car abruptly. "Not driving any more.

  • Taylor Markham," said Raffaela, "I'm going to say a prayer for you." And although I wanted to mock her and explain I didn't believe in anything or anyone, I realised that no one had ever prayed for me before. So I let her.

  • I want to tell him that deep down each time Hannah looked at him she was grateful it was him because Jude did something that the others didn't. He came back for her.

  • No. But it's like the argument `don't donate to third-world countries because the money mightn't get to them.' People only say that because it makes them feel better about the fact that they do nothing.

  • I think you'll just have to wait for that Loser of the Month tiara a little while longer while I wear it, with pride, around my neighborhood.

  • he knew that a part of his life was complete and that whatever path he chose, he would experience the ache of unfulfilled dreams.

  • Fifteen minutes later I was an expert. That's all you need. I think I was even getting the upper hand, which is very simple with a guy. Anything seems to turn them on.

  • He bursts out laughing. It's short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction's already mine.

  • Hannah, do you think that your mum and dad and Tate's mum and dad and my mum and dad and Webb and Tate are all together someplace?' she asks earnestly. I look at Hannah, waiting for the answer. And then she smiles. Webb once said that a Narnie smile was a revelation and, at this moment, I need a revelation. And I get one. 'I wonder,' Hannah says.

  • ...the greatest weapon against big stupid men was a sharp mind.

  • ...what was it like out there? Kind of describe it to us," Jessa says, beaming at them and then at me. Trini beams at her and there's a lot of beaming happening.

  • ...women are elephants and watch the way you say that in front of them because they'll think you're calling them fat and there's no coming back from that moment. But they hoard. They say they don't, but they do. We think that if something's not spoken about again, it goes away. It doesn't. Nothing goes away just like that...

  • A blind man can see what she feels for you and you for her. Your souls are not merely entwined; they are fused.

  • A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.

  • A very underestimated part of the world, The Entrance is.

  • About my first memory, sitting on the shoulders of a giant who I know can only be my father. Of touching the sky. Of lying between two people who read me stories of wild things and journeys with dragons, the soft hum of their voices speaking of love and serenity. See, I remember love.

  • All I need to understand is the unwritten law of warriors," he said firmly. "And women and children are never sent to do our work without our protection." He pointed to the trees, emphatically. "That's the language I share with them.

  • And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for. He wished that he had never met any of them.

  • And being that happy makes me feel guilty. Because I shouldn't be. Not while my mum is feeling the way she is. How I can dare to be happy is beyond me, and I hate my guts for it.

  • And I hear nothing because it's like the volume button has been turned down on our lives and nobody has anything to say anymore." "I want to be an adjective again. But I am a noun.

  • And if I get a little chemically imbalanced in the head, like we all know I tend to get sometimes, and I don't want my parents or brother knowing, Will's like, 'We'll deal with it.' He's never said, 'I'll fix it up.' He just says, 'You're not up to going back to uni to finish your Honours this year? Big deal. There's next year. We'll deal with it.'" She nods. "That's what he does well.

  • And it was this image that was stamped on the hearts and minds of all who were present that day. Of Froi of the Exiles holding the future of Lumatere in his hands.

  • And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die. But there's a joy and an abundance of everything, like information and laughter and summer weather and so many stories. My mother urges me to write them down because, "You're the last of the Markhams, my love." So I record dates and journeys and personalities and traits and heroes and losers and weaknesses and strengths and I try to capture every one of those people because one day I'll need what they had to offer.

  • And then you came along and you spoke to me and nobody had looked me in the eye for years. (...) But I remember you that day and you looked at peace with yourself and it made me reconsider everything I had planned to do. Because I thought to myself, you can't do this to her, not after the Hermit thing." "Do what to me? I don't think leaving me on that platform would have changed my life, Griggs," I lie. "You being on that platform changed mine.

  • And through all the misery, she said that some of us in this lifetime experience a moment of beauty beyond reckoning. I asked her what that was, and she said, "If you're one of the lucky ones, you'll know it when you see it. You'll understand why the gods have made you suffer. Because that moment's reward will make your knees weak and everything you've suffered in life will pale in comparison.

  • And we all end up where we started

  • And when you'd finished running you'd be thousands of miles away from people who love you and your problem would still be there except you'd have nobody to help you.

  • Are you an idiot, or an idiot?' Gargarin hissed. 'The first one. I really resent being called the second.

  • As I walk back to the school on my own, I realise I'm crying. So I go back to the stories I've read about the five and I try to make sense of their lives because in making sense of theirs, I may understand mine.

  • Balthazar pledged to die defending his royal house of Lumuatere. Finnikin swore to be their protector and guide for as long as he lived. Lucian vowed he would be the light whom they traveled toward in times of need.

  • Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.

  • Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.

  • Because being so dependent on people scares me.

  • Because today, I think I'm leaning on the side of wonder.

  • Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?

  • Best way to find the weakness of the enemy is to understand their ways.

  • Between now and when we graduate next year there are at least ten weeks' holiday and five random public holidays. There's email and if you manage to get down to the town, there's text messaging and mobile phone calls. If not, the five minutes you get to speak to me on your communal phone is better than nothing. There are the chess nerds who want to invite you to our school for the chess comp next March and there's this town in the middle, planned by Walter Burley Griffin, where we can meet up and protest against our government's refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty." -Jonah Griggs

  • Brothers always. Balthazar is with us too. We make this work,' Finnikin said fiercely. 'We bring peace to these kingdoms. We deserve it. Our women do. All of us have lost too much, Froi. We've lost the joy of being children. Let's not take that from Jasmina and Tariq and those who come after them

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