Quotes from Melina Marchetta

Up in the distance the whistle of the wind sang to her from the mountain. From Lucian's mountain. It beckoned and taunted and she wanted to run towards it. To be enveloped in its coat of fleece and to hear its safe sounds.

he wanted to be all poetic, but in an instant he forgot Joe's poem about Japan except the part about 'you are the bell, and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,' and a new sound entered his life...

If I become king, do I have to ask your guards and your ladies permission each time I want to touch you in my marriage bed?" Her eyes blazed. "When you become my king, Finnikin, you can touch me whenever you want. Wherever you want.

The boy in the tree sobs uncontrollably when I tell him about the Hermit and my mother, yet his eyes light up each time I mention Hannah. And every single time he asks, "Taylor, what about the Brigadier who came searching for you that day? Whatever became of him?" I try to explain that the Brigadier is of no importance to my story, but he always shakes his head as if he knows better.

You can't go around feeling too much", Captain Travanion had explained watching a moment to ensure the man was indeed dead. "Because if you feel too much, enough to want to kill them so savagely then one day you are going to feel enough to spare their lives.

Tara's already been called a lesbian because that's how the Sebastian boys deal with any girl who has an opinion.

Woman, I'm trying to fight here! Or has that escaped your attention?

you do that all the time you know. you ask me questions when you know the answer will piss you off. ask me a question where the answer could be yes? ask me if you're worth the hard work? ask me if in the last seven years of my life i've woken up in a cold sweat knowing i lost the most important person in my life apart from this kid i'm holding? ask me if getting you pregnat has felt like the best thing that's happened to me since my son was born?

These people have history and I crave history. I crave someone knowing me so well that they can tell what I'm thinking.

He was impressed and surprised and, more than anything, he was intrigued. He was growing to enjoy the way her eyes squinted and her mouth twisted as she concentrated hard. Sometimes he heard her murmur, "Hmm, yes, I know," and he wanted to creep inside her head and join in her madness.

I determine my own worth. If I had to rely on others, I'd have lain down and died waiting.

I won't push you for it anymore, okay. We'll stick to clever conversation. A bit of this and that won't hurt. Yeah, it won't hurt you. It'll drive me bloody crazy.

Sit back and get some sleep. Oh great. So if we have an accident and I'm asleep my resistance toward fighting death will be down and I'll wake up in a morgue.

Do you miss being friends with Santangelo?" I ask her after the lights are out and we're almost asleep. "What makes you think were friends?" "Everything." I hear her yawn. "Being enemies with him is better." she tells me. There's a long pause and I think she's going to say something more but she doesn't and it's just silence for a long while.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Okay, would you like pizza?" "I don't think you deserve my company but I feel sorry for you so I'll say yes." "God help me," he said, half under his breath.

And we all end up where we started

But that's it. When I think of you, I think of future stuff. I think of this is it and I'm not supposed to think this is it at my age. I don't look at you and think nice. I look at you and think, oh my God, I want to hold her and never let her go. I think, sex—right here, right now—

I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes—the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.

Froi woke to see five faces staring down at him. "You fainted," Lirah said. "No, I didn't." "Yes, you did," Gargarin argued. "You climbed down well enough, but the moment we touched the ground, you fainted," Finnikin said. "I've never fainted a day in my life.

It was that he knew that voice, had dreamed it over and over again in a lifetime of rot and misery, and Froi wanted to weep. For he knew he would break his bond to his queen not just with his body but also with his heart.

No. But it's like the argument `don't donate to third-world countries because the money mightn't get to them.' People only say that because it makes them feel better about the fact that they do nothing.

Phaedra of Alonso's death was a never-ending pain that gnawed at his insides. It made him a prisoner in his own cottage.

My favourite photos of my mum and dad are those from before I was born. Because they were so into each other and I can see this love in her eyes that says, I trust this guy to fucking bits.

Unexpectedly, a fierce sense of protectiveness comes over me. Except I fight it back because I can hardly look after myself these days.