Melina Marchetta Quotes

I wish everyone would stop crying, Tom. Uncle Joe would be so angry about it." But she's crying herself now. "He'd be so angry at us, Tom, for crying so much when all he did was laugh.

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

It is what a man does for strangers that counts more than what he does for his family.

This is war," he say quietly. "Well thank God you're dressed for it, Griggs.

So between you and me," I tell Justine on the phone that night, "we're either bitchy or stupid." "Oh God," she moans. "Everyone thinks I'm an idiot." "Thanks!

Women are elephants and watch the way you say that in front of them because they'll think you're calling them fat and there's no coming back from that moment. But they hoard. They say they don't, but they do. We think that if something's not spoken about again, it goes away. It doesn't. Nothing goes away just like that.

They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty,” they’d joke. Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.

She misses him more now than when he was away

You don't die. You just... get really angry and then after you're angry you hurt a lot and then the best thing is that one day you remember something she said or did and you laugh instead of crying.

It’s Tolstoy, by the way,” I say as I open the door. He turns around. “What?” Shut up, I tell myself. Shut up. “The writer of Anna Karenina. Not Trotsky. Trotsky was a revolutionary who was stabbed with a pickax in Mexico in 1940. But I can understand how the T thing could confuse you.

Is your queen what you are searching for in a woman, Froi?" "I never imagined I was looking for something in a woman. But if I did, I'd have to judge her by the way I felt laying beside her before I went to sleep at night and how I felt in the morning waking up to her." "Oh, too profound, my friend. Much too profound.

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.

No chance. It'd be like cutting off our hands." "Then learn to live without your hands." "No, because then we won't be able to do this," Ben says, giving him the finger [...]

I’m frightened that one morning there will not be enough to keep me going.

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.

She made a sound of regret. ‘We come second, you and I, Luc-ien,’ she said. ‘Our allegiance is always to our kingdoms. Without that allegiance, our people would fall.’ She placed her head back against his chest and he felt her tears. ‘This is not our time.’ ‘But that will never mean I love you less,’ he said.

You know what? You didn't do anything wrong. I did. It's this dumb thing I do. I look into things and see more than I'm supposed to.

Simple dreams are the hardest to come true

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.

I walk down the steps of the verandah towards her and with shaking hands she holds my face between them, sobbing, "Look at my beautiful girl.

A clean house will result in peace in the Middle East as well.

Do you think you should warn him (the guard) that I'm going to kiss you?" He loved the flush that appeared on her face, and there was an intake of breath from the girls. "Aldron," she said clearing her throat,"if he agrees to become king, I'm going to let him kiss me. Please don't stop him." Aldron thought for a moment and sighed, holding up his hand. "Wait there and do not move," he ordered Finnikin, before calling out to one of the other guards who stood on the platform. "Ask Perri if he's allowed to touch her if he's agreed to be king.

I think you'll just have to wait for that Loser of the Month tiara a little while longer while I wear it, with pride, around my neighborhood.

She was the most beautiful woman in the world. If she was alive I'd probably be a better person.

Sometimes I feel like a junkie. One minute something happens in my life and I'm flying. Next minute I take a nose-dive and just as I'm about to hit the ground with full force something else will have me flying again.

That someone can want something out of another person who gives absolutely nothing in return astounds me.

Oh, you're one of those,' the princess said. 'One of what?' 'One of those who needs to be told their worth over and over by others. Do you know who tells me my worth, Phaedra of Alonso?' The princess pointed a hard finger at her own chest. 'Me. I determine my own worth. If I had to rely on others I'd have lain down and died waiting.

A very underestimated part of the world, The Entrance is.

Imagine who she would be if we unleashed her onto the world. I think she would rip the breath from all of us.

Why do I feel like something's missing in my life without them and they don't feel the same about me?

And if I get a little chemically imbalanced in the head, like we all know I tend to get sometimes, and I don't want my parents or brother knowing, Will's like, 'We'll deal with it.' He's never said, 'I'll fix it up.' He just says, 'You're not up to going back to uni to finish your Honours this year? Big deal. There's next year. We'll deal with it.'" She nods. "That's what he does well.

Once she made him watch Pride and Prejudice and for ages he would re-word Mr Bingley's apology to Jane Bennet, saying, 'I've been an inexplicable fool', for anything from losing his keys to burping out loud. Her reply to anything she wanted to do was Jane Bennet's response to Bingley's marriage proposal, 'A thousand times yes.

I look at him. "It's odious," he says. "Detention?" I ask, confused. "Huh?" We have no idea what the other is talking about. "What's odious?" I ask. "O.D.S," he says, pointing to his discman and obviously referring to some dropkick band. Like I really care.

He knows no other way but ugliness,” Sir Topher said quietly. “He was taught no other lessons but those of force. His teachers have been scum who live by their own rules. No one has ever taught him otherwise.” “Am I to forgive?” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “No,” he said sadly. “Pity him. Or give him new rules. Or put him down like a wild animal before he becomes a monster who destroys everything he encounters.

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.

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.

Then he holds her and for a moment I hear total silence; that totally silent part of a cry that announces that the most horrible grief is going to follow. And it does, and he's muffling it, but I can hear and I want someone to come over and jab her with a sedative because its pitch pierces my soul.

Why are you smiling?' Gargarin asked Froi, from across the balconette. 'When you're going to have to learn a lesson in diplomacy today and choose between the gardens of two women?' Froi laughed, his chin resting on Quintana's head, his eyes taking in the joy of his son, despite the ridiculous cap that covered the babe's head. He looked across at Lirah and Arjuro and Rafuel, and then back to Gargarin who was smiling himself, because he knew the answer to his own question. 'Because today, I think I'm leaning on the side of wonder.

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.

Men don't rape women because their women are ugly," cousin Jostien said, but there was a protest at his words. "That's what my fa said! He says that inside their hearts and spirits they are nothing but little men who need to feel powerful.

I'm beginning to realize that things don't turn out the way you want them to. And sometimes, when they don't they can turn out just a little bit better.

She gently placed his hand against the beating pulse of her heart. Always, always it beat out of control, and he held his hand to it until he felt it perfectly match his.

Froi heard Zabat's voice echo over and over again throughout the gorge. Wonderful. The gods had found a way of multiplying the idiot's voice.

In the games of queens and kings, we leave our dreams at the door and we make do with what we have. Sometimes if we’re fortunate, we still manage to have a good life.

If I want more, I need to go and get it, demand it, take hold of it with all my might, and do the best I can with it.

We're so different. You're an intellectual. I'm an idiot." "Don't say that," I yelled. "You're not an idiot, you stupid idiot.

I've been passionate about two things in my life. One was Christina Alibrandi. The other is Josephine Alibrandi.

But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes . . . and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for.