Quotes from John Marsden

Sometimes I think I'd rather be frightened than bored. At least when you're frightened you know you're alive.

We'd thought that we were among the first humans to invade this basin, but humans had invaded everything, everywhere. They didn't have to walk into a place to invade it.

Life's harder, the deeper you feel things, was all I could think as I put the books away. Feelings, who needs them? Sometimes they're like a gift, when you feel love or happiness. Sometimes they're a curse.

Never cry over anything that can't cry over you

Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

When you're scared you can either give in to the panic and let your mind fall apart, or you can take charge of your mind and think brave.

At that age you think boys have as much personality as coat hangers and, you don't notice their looks. Then you grow up.

Nothing reaches inside you and grabs you by the guts the way fear does.

Name three types of olives." "Olives! I wouldn't know one type!" "Well, there are three. You can get green ones, you can get black ones, or you can get stuffed.

But it was my parents I longed for mostly. I wanted to be a little girl again and cuddle into them, wriggling in between them like I'd done in their bed when I was three or four, snug and warm in the safest place in the world. Instead I had Hell.

My survival was up to me. I had nothing and I had no one. What I did have, I told myself, was my mind, my imagination, my memory, my feelings, my spirit. These were important and powerful things.

It's good to keep changing your mind. It shows you're thinking. I'll only stop changing my mind when I'm dead. And maybe not even then.

Life's harder, the deeper you feel things.

How funny are dogs?

I feel like I'm dropping such a long way down again." "I seem to be dropping into a cold dark wet place, where no one's been before and noone can every follow. There's no future there; just a past that sometimes fools you into thinking it's the future. It's the most alone place you can ever be and, when you go there, you not only cease to exist in real life, you also cease to exist in their consciousness and in their memories.

A few people would suffer, but a lot of people would be better off.' 'It's just not right,' said Kevin stubbornly. 'Maybe not. But neither's your way of looking at it. There doesn't have to be a right side and a wrong side. both sides can be right, or both sides can be wrong...

Light is important to us humans. It influences our moods, our perceptions, our energy levels. A face glimpsed among trees, dappled by the shadows and the green-tinged light reflected from the forest, will seem quite different to the same face seen on a beach in hard, dry, sunlight, or in a darkening room at twilight, with the shadows of a venetian blind striped across it like a convict's uniform.

Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

I didn't confess how wrecked I was. Let them keep thinking I was Superwoman if they wanted. I knew the truth.

There are some things that once you've lost, you never get back. Innocence is one. Love is another. I guess childhood is a third.

At that age you think boys have as much personality as coat hangers and, you don't notice their looks. Then you grow up.