Quotes from Melina Marchetta

It's not that I like you least [...] it's that I feared you most. The reginita taught me to like you. There was a strange joy to her that lifted my spirits. But you, Quintana of Charyn, you made me love you.

Froi saw the foolishness of dreamers, and he decided he'd like to die so foolish. With a dream in his heart about the possibilities, rather than a chain of hopelessness.

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.

You're judging her by her literacy,' Tara says. 'You're a literacist.' 'You've made that up.' Thomas Mackee packs up his stuff and stands up. 'You chicks give me the shits,' he says. 'You, on the other hand, brighten up our day,' I tell him. 'We all regard you as a god.

Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to die. (...) What you can't understand, you destroy.

I have one brother and I live with four hundred guys. Girls under the age of fourteen are the most frightening creatures I have ever come across.

I stand up and walk towards her because my days of waiting for more are over. If I want more, I need to go and get it, demand it, take hold of it with all my might, and do the best I can with it.

But you pashed Jonah Griggs and he's the leader of the enemy.

But what if I don't?" she argued. "I don't know him. How can I love one that I don't know? I'm frightened to see him. I've never seen a little creature. How will I know he's not all wrong?" "And if he is all wrong, what will you do?" Froi had asked. She thought for a moment. "I'll hold him tight and tell him that we'll be wrong for this world together.

You're going to have to learn to ride a horse on your own, Phaedra', he said. 'It will make the journey faster.' 'The mule and I have an agreement.' 'The mule and you have similar traits.

I'm frightened that one morning there will not be enough to keep me going.

Brothers always. Balthazar is with us too. We make this work,' Finnikin said fiercely. 'We bring peace to these kingdoms. We deserve it. Our women do. All of us have lost too much, Froi. We've lost the joy of being children. Let's not take that from Jasmina and Tariq and those who come after them

I think back to my dream of the boy, because in it I find solace. I like that word. I'm going to make it my word of the year. There is just something about that boy that makes me feel like I belong. Belong. Long to be . Weird word, but semantics aside, it is up there with solace .

I'd like to think I'm Elizabeth, but deep down I think I'm the one whose name no one can remember. Not Lydia the slut or Mary the nerd or Jane the beauty or Elizabeth the opinionated. I'm the second-youngest. The forgotten one. - Francesca Spinelli

He knew he should have counted. It was the rule to count to ten in his head before he opened his mouth. It was the rule to count to ten if he wanted to smash a man in the face for saying something he didn't like. It was the rule to count to ten if instinct wasn't needed, but common sense was.

He watched as Finnikin swung onto the horse, his sleeve stained with blood. Froi liked the way Finnikin reached behind him and took Evanjalin's hand, placing it around his waist. It made everything seem normal because Finnikin always wanted to touch her.

You know something,Jacob, I'd hate to be as smart as Jonh. I mean he was really, really smart, and to be that smart means you know all the answers, and when you know all the answers there's no room for dreaming.

If she's out here and not locked up in the barracks, I'll know," he said. He took a deep breath and whistled. "You share a whistle?" Trevanion said in disbelief. "Do you have a problem with that?" Finnikin asked. "I have a few whistles," Lucian murmured. "Very confusing sometimes." "Whistles are meant for combat," Trevanion said. "Not wooing women. Women do not understand whistles.

When a woman has not received much flattery in her life, she will be seduced.

Don't let me die. Not now , he begged. Why? she demanded to know. Because I deserve to live. A hand suddenly gripped his wrist. He wondered if the hold came from the realms of the gods. But he didn't care. All he knew was what the Goddess was whispering to him, He'll never let you go. How could you have ever doubted him?

For reasons he couldn't understand a sadness came over him and it was then he saw the girl standing on the other side of the dirt road, her eyes pools of absolute sorrow, her light brown hair glowing in the splinters of sunlight that forced their way through the trees.

My mother, unlike yours, never exchanged sexual favors for a piece of silver," he said, addressing the first insult by banging the boy's head against the trunk of the tree. "And," he said with another resounding thump, "although I'm very familiar with that part of the female body, I take offense at being labeled one.

It's like geographical humor. You just don't get it unless you were there.

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