Melina Marchetta Quotes

What's with what you're wearing?" Griggs asks while we stand outside waiting for the others."It's pretty hideous, isn't it?" I say."Don't force me to look at it," he says. "It's see-through."That kills conversation for a couple of seconds.

Do you want to know something about tyrants? When faced with death, they weep and they beg just like the rest of us.

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

What if she's all I give you in this life of ours, my love?" she asked quietly. "Then I'll shout at the goddess in fury," he said fiercely. "I'll beg to know why I've been given so much when other men have so little.

I'm scared to die," I whispered as Michael walked in."He was scared to live," he said kissing my forehead.

I hope you're not smoking in front of her,' Lucia says to him.'Yeah, I lie in bed and puff in her face, Lucia,' he says, irritated.

Stani walks in later, glaring at them both.“Bloody bastards. One minute punching each other, next minute reading poetry. What’s wrong with everyone this week?”Tom can tell that

How can you just forget a person completely until the moment you see his face again?

As he left Yata’s home that morning, he knew that a part of his life was complete and that whatever path he chose, he would experience the ache of unfulfilled dreams. For a moment he allowed himself to feel regret at the thought of never building a cottage by the river with Trevanion. Or living the life of a simple farmer connected to the earth. Or traveling his kingdom, satisfying the nomad he had become. To be Finnikin of the Rock and the Monts and the River and the Flatlands and the Forest. To be none of those at all.Yet he also knew that to lose her to another man would be a slow torture every day for the rest of his life.

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

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.

But I want to give in to it sometimes, only because I'm tired and the feeling that I've had for a while-that something is haunting me down-becomes all consuming and I'm frightened that one morning there will be not enough to keep me going.

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

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

In the games of queens and kings, we leave our dreams at the door and we make do with what we have. Sometimes if we’re fortunate, we still manage to have a good life.

The boy in the tree sobs uncontrollably when I tell him about the Hermit and my mother, yet his eyes light up each time I mention Hannah. And every single time he asks, “Taylor, what about the Brigadier who came searching for you that day? Whatever became of him?” I try to explain that the Brigadier is of no importance to my story, but he always shakes his head as if he knows better.

When one is silent, those around speak even more, my lord.

I remember passion.

Just say up on the hill is the meaning of life and someone knew it and they wanted everyone else to enjoy it. So they put a red vinyl sofa up there.

Play me something that makes me feel;This soul inside me is made of steel.Brain is breathing, but heart’s not beatingAnd, babe, I need you to make things real.Walk inside me without silence,Kill the past and change the tense.Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring;Take me places that make more sense.

If I had to wish for something, just one thing, it would be that Hannah would never see Tate the way I did. Never see Tate's beautiful, lush hair turn brittle, her skin sallow, her teeth ruined by anything she could get her hands on that would make her forget. That Hannah would never count how many men there were, or how vile humans can be to one another. That she would never see the moments in my life that were full of neglect, and fear, and revulsion, moments I can never go back to because I know they will slow me down for the rest of my life if I let myself remember them for one moment. Tate, who had kept Hannah alive that night, reading her the story of Jem Finch and Mrs. Dubose. 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.

But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.

Each day, at the same time, Jude would return and they would be there, led by Webb, whose life could not have been more different than his. Where Webb's memories of childhood were idyllic and earthy, Jude's reeked of indifference. Webb read fantasy; Jude read realism. Webb believed a tree house was the perfect place for gaining a different perspective on the world; Jude saw it as perfect for surveillance and working out who or what was a threat to them. They argued about sport codes and song lyrics. Jude saw the rain-dirty valley; Webb saw Brigadoon. Yet, despite all this, they connected, and the nights they spent in the tree house discussing their brave new worlds and not so brave emotions made everything else in their lives insignificant. Somehow the world of Webb and Fitz and Tate and Narnie became the focus of Jude's life.

Imagine the state of one's mind if they were to recall its details. All those months cocooned and then the onslaught of this ugly world. Lights and noise and strangeness. It's no wonder we scream with terror at our birth.

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.

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.

If she allowed herself to give in to the whole sadness of it, she'd never ever be able to operate like a normal person again.

Mercy', Finnikin said, grinning from ear to ear. 'We're going to have a bed full of children and I'll have to holler out to my wife, "Hello there! It's been a long time since we last spoke!

Lucian's father had warned him to fear idle men. Without the pride gained from a good day's work, they were left to their vices and the doubts that crowded their head. Their hatred. Their envy.

Somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.

But then Froi looked back to where his work lay unfinished and it made him sad because there had been something about the touch of earth in his hands that made him feel worthwhile.

I've wept enough in my life. I have no tears left.

So I'm cruising down the road and the object of my thoughts is racing down the street, screaming that her father is a cop. A public servant, very flattering" " I like a man in uniform" He laughed. 'Do you like pizza?' 'What a ridiculous question. I suppose you're going to ask me if I like pasta next?

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

Maybe memories should be left the way they are.

I trace his face with my fingers, 'Let me see. A guy tells me that he would have thrown himself in front of a train if it wasn't for me and then drives seven hours straight, without whingeing once, on a wild-goose chase in search of my mother with absolutely no clue where to start. He is, in all probability, going to get court-martialled because of me, has put up with my moodiness all day long, and knows exactly what to order me for breakfast. It doesn't get any more romantic than that, Jonah.

Simple dreams are the hardest to come true

It still amazes him how they could have been misled by her personality in Year Eleven. It's what depression does to a person, it changes them completely.

Was. What does was actually mean? The verb to be. Past tense of is. Does it mean that someone is no longer being?

Today this courtyard was filled with great warriors. What is more? But it was not filled with great men who have the heart to rule a kingdom. Any man can kill, Finnikin. It is a stroke, an action with one's hand. But not every man knows how to lead.

In an instant he forgot Joe's poem about Japan except the part about 'you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,' and a new sound entered his life, like when he was a kid and he first heard the sound of horses clip-clopping and he asked his mother in wonder, "What's that sound, because I've never heard it before?

Even five minutes of your time can make someone’s day,

She knows that feeling too. Of believing that each time someone says her name, it’s to tell her that something bad has happened.

Promise me you'll never stop dreaming.

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.

At times it's like sadness has planted itself on her face, refusing to leave, an overwhelming sadness, and sometimes I see despair there, too.

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.

Then he holds her and for a moment I hear total silence; that totally silent part of a cry that announces that the most horrible grief is going to follow. And it does, and he's muffling it, but I can hear and I want someone to come over and jab her with a sedative because its pitch pierces my soul.

If Froi understood anything, it was that in this world one's worth came from others.

In the end, the sum of my vices is all me.

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.

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.

The pages aren't numbered, so I don't know whether I have the beginning or end or whether it's in sequence but these days I'm not really looking for continuity.All I'm after is something that makes sense to me.

Sir Topher finally looked up. “Because any hope beyond that, my boy, would be too much. I feared we would drown in it.”"Then I choose to drown,” Finnikin said. “In hope. Rather than float into nothing.

The music department is going to do a musical next year," he tells me, rolling his eyes like I would.Justine is running toward me, and I can tell by the look on her face that she's found out about the musical, too.I sigh, shaking my head. "I have to give Justine a lesson in holding back," I tell him. "She's just way too enthusiastic".She grabs my arms in excitement. "We're doing Les Mis."I scream hysterically, clutching her as we jump up and down.

Are you calling us pigs?’ Froi asked, watching as Rafuel winced for the tenth time at the formality of Froi’s Charyn.Rafuel thought for a moment and then nodded.‘Actually yes, I am. Pig-like.’Froi turned back to Trevanion and Perri, who were discussing the need for longbow training in the rock village.‘What is it?’ Perri asked Froi.‘He said we eat like pigs.’Trevanion and Perri thought about it for a moment and then went back to their conversation.

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

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

And we all end up where we started

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.I counted.It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, 'What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?' and my father said, 'Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,' and that was the last thing he ever said.