Melina Marchetta Quotes

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

"You've made that up.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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?”

“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.”

“For she would be Queen of Lumatere.

But he would be king to her.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“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 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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”