Quotes from Melina Marchetta

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.

Guess what?' Fitz said. 'I don't know,' Jude said. 'What? Narnie smiled?' He glanced at her for the first time. 'When you guys see a Narnie smile, it's like a revelation,' Webb said, gathering her towards him. Jude stopped in front of her and, with both hands cupping her face, tried to make a smile. Narnie flinched. 'Leave her alone,' Tate said. 'I need a revelation,' Jude said. 'And you're the only one that can give me one, Narns.

I used to tell your mother she looked like Sophia Lauren." He looks at me, frowning, and then it registers. "Oh God, some guy's using that line on you, isn't he?" "Not just 'some guy'." I tell him. "The guy.

Living is the challenge. Not dying. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take you eighty years and you do something in that time.

I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.

Our bodies aren't strangers,' he said, his voice ragged. 'Our spirits aren't strangers'. He held her face in his hands. 'Tell me what part of me is stranger to you and I'll destroy that part of me.' And she wept to hear his words.

The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, "We're pregnant." I want to go around the neighborhood saying, "We're depressed." If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.

It's against the rules of humanity to believe there is nothing we can do.

You go shake your foundations, Will. I think it's about time I saved myself.

Memory is a funny thing. It tricks you into believing that you've forgotten important moments, and then when you're raking your brain for a bit of information that might make sense of something else, it taps you on the head and says, "Remember when you told me to put that memory in the green rubbish bin? Well, I didn't, I put it in the black recycling tub, and it's coming your way again.

I'm very disturbed to find out that the leader of the Townies has a soul and I'm beginning to develop a bit of a crush on him.

I don't want to let go, because tonight I'm not looking for anything more than being part of him. Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.

And then their voices stopped and their souls stood still and they ceased being who they had been. Because who they were had always been determined by him.

Don't believe in God. Love the world just the way it is.

Do you think I don't want him to be gone more than you do? I do. Because I need to know that I can still breathe properly when he's not around. If something happens to him, I have to know that I won't fall apart...

But grieving people are selfish. They won't let you comfort them and they say you don't understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you've been functional to them.

Finn, listen!" Trevanion said, his voice raw. "I prayed to see you one more time. It's all I prayed for. Nothing more. And my prayers were answered. Go east, I'll lead them west." "We have a dilemma, then," Finnikin said fiercely. "Because I prayed that you would grow old and hold my children in your arms as you held me. My prayers have not been answered yet, Trevanion. So whose prayer is more worthy? Yours or mine?

Promise me you'll never stop dreaming.

I shrug. "I'll probably mention that I'm in love with you." He chuckles. "Only you would say that in such a I-think-I'll-wash-my-hair-tonight tone.

Do you love me?' he asked instead. 'Because if you don't, I'd wait until you did. I'd wait weeks and months and years.

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.

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.

Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known.

You just have to belong. Long to be.