Quotes from Melina Marchetta

They drive back home to grab his backpack and as he bends and kisses his grandma Agnes, she scrunches a one-hundred-dollar bill in his hand. "Buy yourself some chocolates, Tom." It's what she'd say to him as a kid with a twenty cent coin.

I've been in that void,' she told me once. 'Don't you ever give in to it

People fall out of love. People disappoint other people and they find it hard to forgive.

And at last Finnikin understood why he had felt so sorrowful and silent these last few days. He knew how to be Finnikin of the Rock to Evanjalin of the Monts. But he had no idea who to be to Queen Isaboe.

He's gods' blessed. He can do more than one thing at once. Be an idiot and be responsible. He has these multiple skills." "Much like women, but they're not called gods' blessed. They're just called women.

Yes, I did," he says casually. "In the first minute I met them. Then in the second minute, I decided I wasn't going to be into dudes who treat others like crap only because they can. And then in the third, I actually stopped noticing they were around. I'm easily bored around stupid people.

Thomas Mackee and Jimmy Hailler grasp each other's hands, one of those brothers-in-arms-we-fought-in-Nam-together grips, but outside this room I don't think they relate.

I think if I'm ever asked to recall what Year 12 was all about, I'll remember it as one big cappuccino experience.

It's all rather political, mourning is.

When I was eight years old," the priest-king confessed, "I wanted to be a god." The holy man looked around the ragged tent. "Perhaps this is my punishment, but between you and me, I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do.

Her voice stopped him. "I woke with your name on my lips every morning. Like a prayer of hope. For now, that's all I can offer.

And then the Charynite last borns were lifting Quintana on their shoulders and the Lumaterans had Froi on theirs, and she was laughing and he thought he'd never seen her look so beautiful. And over everyone's heads, Froi could see Gargarin and Arjuro staring up at her with their bittersweet smiles, and Froi imagined two boys with the same face all those years ago in a filthy cave beneath the swamps of Abroi, praying for a better life.

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," he said.

Froi noticed that she said "carrying mine," not "carrying you." Lirah and Gargarin still had not acknowledged him as theirs, and he realized that he wanted more from them than they were willing to give. But they seemed broken people who were not good with words, so he kept his silence.

Despite her ability to enjoy most of their days, sometimes her despair was so great that, in a melancholy moment when she'd allow herself to think of her family, she'd almost stop breathing

He could hardly breathe at the though of his son and Quintana in Sorel with no one to protect them.

Wives can replace their husbands, Georgie," her aunt once told her. "But sisters can't replace their brothers.

Because I want to feel something other than this emotional crap

But in ten years, no one had ever asked what he was thinking. And he knew that the novice Evanjalin was asking for more than just his thoughts. She wanted the part of him he fought to keep hidden. The part that held his foolish hopes and aching memories.

There was this time when I looked at a picture and thought it was a man with horns, but when I stepped up to study it I could see it was actually a butterfly with wings standing up straight. That's what happens when you stop looking at things from far away. My advice… look at whatever you're scared of from a different angle. Look at it up really close.

Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?" Did I wonder? When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know? Wonder dies.

Kind of interested in you, " he laughs, as if he can't believe what he's hearing. "I'm kind of interested in calculus and ancient Roman warfare. You don't use words like kind of interested to describe how I feel about you.

I wonder if he sees the blood of someone who cut themselves while carving out their soul. Or if he's imagining what he'd write if he had a knife in his hand

Finnikin's head was bent low over the horse and he kicked its flanks hard and Froi had never clutched the body of one who felt so much but it reminded him of the time when he had tried to take Evanjalin in the barn. Both times the touch of their bodies had burned him, but this time something entered his bloodstream. Planted a seed.