Melina Marchetta Quotes page 3

“Quintana of Charyn's body was a map of hatred.”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

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

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“What were you doing with her?" I ask quietly.
"Apart from questioning her about your whereabouts, I was listening to the most intriguing story about my life moonlighting as a kidnapper.”

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“You know what? You didn't do anything wrong. I did. It's this dumb thing I do. I look into things and see more than I'm supposed to.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“I heard your song the moment we were born. And years later, it dragged me back from the lake of the half-dead when all I wanted to do was die. Each time someone tried to kill me, it sang its tune and gave me hope.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“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.”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.”

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“You're judging her by her literacy," Tara says. "You're a literacist."

"You've made that up.”

Source: Saving Francesca

“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.”

Source: Saving Francesca

“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.”

Source: Saving Francesca

“… the greatest weapon against big stupid men was a sharp mind.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“You can't think for other people. Nor can you feel for them or be them. They have to do that for themselves.”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“It is what a man does for strangers that counts more than what he does for his family.”

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“The two horsewomen of the apocalypse still win, despite their dwindling numbers.”

Source: Quintana of Charyn

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

Source: The Piper's Son

“Lucian was beginning to get used to hearing her small observations at night. More than anything, he realized he liked her voice in the dark. It made him feel less lonely.”

Source: Saving Francesca

“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.”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“What are you doing?" she asked, trying to raise herself.

"First, I thought I'd show you what a pity it would be if they cut off my wicked tongue.”

Source: Saving Francesca

“I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do.”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“And he saw it in her eyes. Still. The belief that there could be someone other than herself. You, he wanted to shout. You. No one but you.”

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“Great to know that I'm in love with a girl with a cool name."
"It's Taylor's middle name”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“Love’s easy. It kind of comes with the territory. But liking is another story.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

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

Source: The Piper's Son

“How seven days had passed since she had disappeared from existence.
That it would take the eyes of the gods to find her.
Or the heart of the Lumateran exile.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

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

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“You were never able to break her. She is the stone of this kingdom.”

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“Teresa, Teresa. Have we taught you nothing?" Raffy says in an irritated voice. "It's war. You go in and you hunt him down until he realises that he's made a mistake.”

Source: Quintana of Charyn

“Imagine who she would be if we unleashed her onto the world. I think she would rip the breath from all of us.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“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.”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“Men don't rape women because their women are ugly," cousin Jostien said, but there was a protest at his words.

"That's what my fa said! He says that inside their hearts and spirits they are nothing but little men who need to feel powerful.”

Source: Saving Francesca

“She misses him more now than when he was away”

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“Tom always did anger well. Hid it well, but showed it even better”

Source: The Piper's Son

“If something happened to me, whose face will be on the front page of the paper begging for me? Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?”

Source: The Piper's Son

“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.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“For she would be Queen of Lumatere.

But he would be king to her.”

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“You shy, Francesca?” Javier asks me later on.

I shake my head. “Not really.” I’m just sad, I want to say. And I’m lonely.”

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“He hesitated, remembering something Finnikin had said to him on their journey. That 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.”

Source: Saving Francesca

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

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“We're so different. You're an intellectual. I'm an idiot."
"Don't say that," I yelled. "You're not an idiot, you stupid idiot.”

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“Phaedra looked across the water and her eyes met Lucian’s. Their needs came second. It came from the privilege of being trusted.”

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“I'll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself… I'll run to be emancipated.”

Source: Quintana of Charyn

“I love it when you're demented like this.”

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“See them together and you will feel a force that will take your breath away.”

Source: Saving Francesca

“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.”

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“I wasn't there that day to get on the three forty-seven to Yass", he says. "I was there to throw myself in front of it.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“It's too late. Seventeen-year-olds don't need fathers.
Oh god. I'm thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can't even begin to think what my daughter needs.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“He came third in the state for woodwork,”
Francesca explains. “We actually had to be proud of him for a whole week. Tough times.”

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

“I ran away one day. He was running in the same direction.”

Source: The Piper's Son

“They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty,” they’d joke.
Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.”

Source: On the Jellicoe Road