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John Marsden Quotes

John Marsden is an Australian writer, teacher and school principal. Marsden has had his books translated into eleven languages including Norwegian, French, German, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Polish, and Spanish.

Marsden was born in Victoria, Australia, and spent his early life in Kyneton, Victoria, Devonport, Tasmania, and Sydney. At age 28, after working several jobs, Marsden began a teaching course. While working as a teacher, Marsden began writing for children, and had his first book, So Much to Tell You, published in 1987. Since then, he has written or edited over 40 books and has sold over 5 million books throughout the world.

In 2006, Marsden started an alternative school, Candlebark School in the Macedon Ranges. Marsden has since reduced his writing to focus on teaching and running the school. In 2016, he opened the arts-focused secondary school, Alice Miller School, also in the Macedon Ranges. He is also the patron of youth media organisation Express Media.

✵ 27. September 1950  •  Other names جان مارشدن

Works

Tomorrow, When the War Began
John Marsden: 26 quotes5 likes

Famous John Marsden Quotes

“The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.”

John Marsden

Source: Circle of Flight

“Some people wake up drowsy. Some people wake up energized. I wake up dead.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Never cry over anything that can't cry over you”

John Marsden

Source: The Other Side of Dawn

“There are some things that once you've lost, you never get back. Innocence is one. Love is another. I guess childhood is a third.”

John Marsden

“My survival was up to me. I had nothing and I had no one. What I did have, I told myself, was my mind, my imagination, my memory, my feelings, my spirit. These were important and powerful things.”

John Marsden

Source: A Killing Frost

John Marsden Quotes about thinking

“It's good to keep changing your mind. It shows you're thinking. I'll only stop changing my mind when I'm dead. And maybe not even then.”

John Marsden

Source: Darkness, Be My Friend

“Sometimes I think I'd rather be frightened than bored. At least when you're frightened you know you're alive.”

John Marsden

Source: A Killing Frost

“At that age you think boys have as much personality as coat hangers and, you don't notice their looks.
Then you grow up.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“When you're scared you can either give in to the panic and let your mind fall apart, or you can take charge of your mind and think brave.”

John Marsden

Source: The Dead of Night

“Life's harder, the deeper you feel things, was all I could think as I put the books away. Feelings, who needs them? Sometimes they're like a gift, when you feel love or happiness. Sometimes they're a curse.”

John Marsden

Source: The Dead of Night

John Marsden Quotes

“We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies.”

John Marsden

Source: The Dead of Night

“All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“What's the Future? It's a blank sheet of paper, and we draw lines on it, but sometimes our hand is held, and the lines we draw aren't the lines we wanted.”

John Marsden

Source: The Dead of Night

“The Bible just said ‘Thou shalt not kill’, then told hundreds of stories of people killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“I live in the light,
But carry my dark with me.”

John Marsden

Source: The Dead of Night

“I'm a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that's me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I'd die; I don't know what of, I just knew I'd die.”

John Marsden

Source: A Killing Frost

“We'd thought that we were among the first humans to invade this basin, but humans had invaded everything, everywhere. They didn't have to walk into a place to invade it.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Nothing reaches inside you and grabs you by the guts the way fear does.”

John Marsden

Source: A Killing Frost

“Life's harder, the deeper you feel things.”

John Marsden

Source: The Dead of Night

“Name three types of olives."

"Olives! I wouldn't know one type!"

"Well, there are three. You can get green ones, you can get black ones, or you can get stuffed.”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“But it was my parents I longed for mostly. I wanted to be a little girl again and cuddle into them, wriggling in between them like I'd done in their bed when I was three or four, snug and warm in the safest place in the world.

Instead I had Hell.”

John Marsden

Source: Darkness, Be My Friend

“How funny are dogs?”

John Marsden book Tomorrow, When the War Began

Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began

“My pen.’ Funny, I wrote that without noticing. ‘The torch’, ‘the paper’, but ‘my pen’. That shows what writing means to me, I guess. My pen is a pipe from my heart to the paper. It’s about the most important thing I own.”

John Marsden

Source: The Dead of Night

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