Quotes from Melina Marchetta

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.

Oh, you've outdone me twice now, you queen of forgiveness. The ring's a promise of peace and I'm greedy with hope. It's a song that we sing in a tongue that we share. And though you say it's a gift from a king to a king, I say it's a sign from a queen to a queen.

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

But you're almost eighteen. You're old enough. Everyone else is doing it. And next year someone is going to say to someone else 'but you're only sixteen, everyone else is doing it' Or one day someone will tell your daughter that she's only thirteen and everyone else is doing it. I don't want to do it because everyone else is doing it.

If I did something to hurt Frankie and she said that I was never getting near her heart again, I'd spent the rest of my life trying anyway. That's the difference between you and me, Tom. I'd go back to the moment it all fell apart and I'd start there.

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.

Her voice whispering love soothes him. They'd never done that before. Weren't that type of family. Except now he doesn't know what kind of family they are. What word is it that can define them? What would they call his family in the textbooks? Broken? He comes from a broken home. The Mackees can't be put back together again. There are too many pieces of them missing.

Sometimes Thomas Mackee will stick an earphone into my ear and ask me to listen to a song. When I get over the revulsion of putting something in my ear that's been in his, I sit back and let the music take over, and for a half hour there's something comforting about someone's heart beating at the same rhythm as mine.

There will be no 'one day,'" I yell. "Because holidays are over, Griggs, and you and I are never going to cross paths again. Not in the next ten days. Not ever! Have a fantastic life. [...] "Be careful what you wish for," he says with quiet menace, "because I'm about this close to telling you to get the fuck out of my life." I stare at him. "What do you want from me?" he asks. What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him. More.

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.

I can't wait to tell him one day," she says with a giggle. "'Hey, Chaz, guess what? We knew where your precious car was all the time.' I'd like to take a photo of his face. What do you think?" "I reckon I'd smile really nicely in the photo," Santangelo says behind me, yanking me out of the way, "knowing that you'll be keeping it under your pillow for the rest of your life.

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?

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

The head nerd of the Cadets is my partner and when it's over he asks me for my number. I'm very flattered and he looks a bit crestfallen when I say no. "It's because they don't have coverage out here," Griggs tells him. "No," I say, looking up at Griggs. "It's actually because my heart belongs to someone else." And if I could bottle the look on his face, I'd keep it by my bedside for the rest of my life.

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.

You grab at any sign of hope. You grab it with both hands and breathe life into it, day after day. You do anything to keep it alive.

We don't even love each other. I do a bit, you know. You do what a bit? You know. Like you...whatever...love you a bit. I think I kind of love you too.

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

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.

Phaedra looked across the water and her eyes met Lucian's. Their needs came second. It came from the privilege of being trusted. But that doesn't mean I love you less.

I can do oblivion, you know. I can do it better than him. I'd like to see how he likes it if I just disappear from his life without a word. It was okay for him to keep in contact with Georgie and my mum, but not once did he pick up the phone or write to me. Like I was fucking nothing to him. Like I'm nothing to no one.

He knows no other way but ugliness," Sir Topher said quietly. "He was taught no other lessons but those of force. His teachers have been scum who live by their own rules. No one has ever taught him otherwise." "Am I to forgive?" she said, her voice shaking with anger. "No," he said sadly. "Pity him. Or give him new rules. Or put him down like a wild animal before he becomes a monster who destroys everything he encounters.

It's Tolstoy, by the way," I say as I open the door. He turns around. "What?" Shut up, I tell myself. Shut up. "The writer of Anna Karenina. Not Trotsky. Trotsky was a revolutionary who was stabbed with a pickax in Mexico in 1940. But I can understand how the T thing could confuse you.