Quotes from Melina Marchetta

We just wanted to have fun. Mia wanted us to change the world.

Just ask me how I'm feeling," I want to say. "Just ask and I may tell you." But no one does.

It's kind of like a grief, and it's not a puzzle that you're supposed to work out on your own

I can hazard a guess, but I'll never know/ Why you put these walls up, I can't get through/It's as though you want to be lonely and blue.

She rubbed it onto his hands one day in Year Eleven, feeling the texture of his fingertips, callused by the strings of his guitar, and his palms, rough from woodwork. ("Productive, despite your lazy streak," she had said, inspecting them.)

And being that happy makes me feel guilty. Because I shouldn't be. Not while my mum is feeling the way she is. How I can dare to be happy is beyond me, and I hate my guts for it. I hate myself so much that it makes my head spin.

And slowly the mornings begin to change. Nothing too friendly or exciting, but by the time I get to school, the sick feeling that I wake up with every morning disappears. Not for long, but enough to get me through the day.

I have to say it's a bit traumatic at times, not knowing when the next penis will appear.

I've had it with this waiting business. I can cope with another woman, but I can't cope with being ignored when there's nothing in his way.

I'm sorry," he says, "for that time I kissed you at that party and for that time at the wedding and more than anything for the thousand times that I wanted to and didn't have the guts to.

It was the type of pain he felt he could endure for as long as he had to.

Do not cry," she said fiercely, but her own tears flowed. "Do not cry, Finnikin. For if we begin, our tears will never end.

I wrote to you for a year and you never wrote back. T rang you over and over again and you would never come to the phone. What part of that gives the impression that I didn't care? ~Jonah Griggs

Not just a name but a state of mind I never want to revisit, although I do keep him at the back of my mind for those times I get my hopes raised about something. So then I can slap myself into reality and remind myself of what happens when you let someone into your sacred space.

What if she's all I give you in this life of ours, my love?" she asked quietly. "Then I'll shout at the goddess in fury," he said fiercely. "I'll beg to know why I've been given so much when other men have so little.

Finnikin had learned over the years not to think of anything beyond the practicalities of getting from one point to another. To focus on the achievable.

My ideal community? Anywhere but here.

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.

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

Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories, Florenza of Nebia. Remember that, or you'll be vomiting for the rest of your life.

The king's very simple cousin, for example, pointed out that the tower Froi could see from where he was standing was the prison and currently held only one prisoner. "The rest of the the scum are kept in dungeons close to the bridge of the Citavita," the man explained. "And the king?" Froi asked. "We try not to refer to him as scum out loud," the man whispered.

and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breathe for the rest of my life

I'm frightened to look at myself in the mirror because maybe nothing's there.

Because people aren't interested in the truth, Dafar. They're interested in what keeps them safe. They're interested in being looked after. They're interested in a tale being spun.