John Marsden Quotes & Sayings

Cynicism is like gastro: it goes through your whole system and makes you shitty. — John Marsden

There's nothing like the very early morning. It's the sweetness of the air, the sweet coolness; it's the bubbling of the creek which, for some strange reaction, always sounds more energetic than it does later on; it's the gargling of the magpies. — John Marsden

This is bigger than a fart in a bathtub, you know. — John Marsden

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. — John Marsden

That night in bed I was thinking about the way creeks and streams operate. They start off little, gurgling and bubbling and jumping over rocks and stuff, full of energy, going all over the place. Then they get older and bigger, become rivers, take a more definite course, stick to their path, know where they're going, get slower and wider. And eventually they reach the ocean and become part of this vast mysterious world of water that stretches away forever.
Yep, just like people. — John Marsden

The dreams now were simply of staying alive. — John Marsden

What's the Future? It's a blank sheet of paper, and we draw lines on it, but sometimes our hand is held, and the lines we draw aren't the lines we wanted. — John Marsden

If you have blank spots instead of stories for part of your life, then that would be a pretty serious thing I think. — John Marsden

How funny are dogs? — John Marsden

If people are either mountain people or ocean people then I'm a mountain person. I love the ocean, the few times I get a chance to see it, but I'm a mountain girl. — John Marsden

If I have to do battle with you a thousand times to prove my point, I'll do it.'
The queen unwisely asked, 'But to prove what point, my dear Hamlet?'
'That I loved Ophelia! Fifty thousand brothers, with all the love they can summon, would not equal my love for here. Ophelia, Ophelia. — John Marsden

We survived, Ellie, we survived. — John Marsden

And suddenly they came out of the woodwork. I don't actually know what that expression means. What come out of the wood work? Cockroaches maybe. Mice? Are these rhetorical questions, like I just learned about on one of my rare visits to school? Was that a rhetorical question? Is it a paradox when you ask rhetorically if a rhetorical question is a rhetorical question? I think I'd better stop before I get a headache. — John Marsden

People, shadows, good, bad, Heaven, Hell: all of these were names, labels, that was all. Humans had created these opposites: Nature recognised no opposites. Even life and death weren't opposites in Nature: one was merely an extension of the other. — John Marsden

We believed we were safe. That was the big fantasy. — John Marsden

But somehow, standing in the clear night air, under a sky that glowed like a shower of sparks, none of that stuff mattered. It slipped off me. It was like shedding your clothes before you step in the shower. I felt I was down to essentials again. In fact I felt very close to God at that moment. I guess if you're ever going to feel close to God it'll be while you're looking at the heavens. — John Marsden

We're all so curiously alone, but it's important to keep making signals through the glass — John Marsden

The human eye doesn't look above its own height. — John Marsden

Dad always said there were three types of workers. The ones who stood there saying "Is there anything I can do " and did nothing. Most of our city guests were like that. The ones who said "Tell me what you want done and I'll do it" and did. Most of our workers over the years had been like that. And the ones who didn't say anything but were always a jump or two ahead of you. When you were changing a flat tyre and you took the old one off and turned to pick up the new one they'd already have it in their hands and they'd move in and put it on from your left while you were still turning round to the right.
Dad reckoned one of those was worth two or the second type and five of the first type. — John Marsden

People just sticking names on places, so that no one could see those places properly any more. Every time they looked at them or thought about them the the first thing they saw was a huge big sign saying 'Housing Commission' or 'private school' or 'church' or 'mosque' or 'synagogue'. They stopped looking once they saw those signs. — John Marsden

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 ... — John Marsden

I'm a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that's me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I'd die; I don't know what of, I just knew I'd die. — John Marsden

I was deeply impressed by the fact that my life could lose three days without my having any awareness of it. Maybe this was a preview of death: continuous visions and dreams and vague glimpses of reality. Only with death you never wake up: you keep having the weird images forever. — John Marsden

It's terribly, terribly important recording what we've done, in words, on paper, it's got to be our way of telling ourselves that we mean something, that we matter. That the things we've done have made a difference. I don't know how big a difference, but a difference. Writing it down means we might be remembered. And by God that matters to us. None of us wants to end up as a pile of dead white bones, unnoticed, unknown, and worst of all, with no one knowing or appreciating the risks we've run. — John Marsden

Well, I've learnt this much: it doesn't matter
what it costs, it's worth paying the price. You can't live cheap
and you can't live for nothing. Pay the price and be proud you've
paid it, that's what I reckon. — John Marsden

Silence, sometimes my fortress, always my prison. — John Marsden

There's nothing lonelier than grief. Sometimes I wanted to cry out to them all in the middle of History "Please please look at me help me can't you see how unhappy I am?"
But what would have happened? They would have gathered round making soothing noises helping me out of the room maybe offering me tissues ... and none of that would touch the deep dark ocean that circled silently inside. They could not see it touch it stop it. I didn't know any way to do that. — John Marsden

We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies. — John Marsden

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. — John Marsden

Why did people call it Hell? I wondered. [ ... ] No place was Hell, no place could be Hell. It's the people calling it Hell, that's the only thing that made it so. People just sticking names on places, so that no one could see those places properly anymore. [ ... ]
No, Hell wasn't anything to do with place, Hell was all to do with people. Maybe Hell was people. — John Marsden

Do you think Lee's all right?'
'I'm praying my ass off.'
At that moment came the happiest sight I'd ever seen. A thin hand appeared out of the shovel, made a V sign or a peace sign-it was hard to tell in the dimness-and disappeared again. — John Marsden

There's no room for anything else. You forget that you're tired or cold or hungry. You forget that banged-up knee and your aching tooth. You forget the past, and you forget that there's such a thing as a future. — John Marsden

I guess you can't live at full-on intensity forever. Lying on the bed of my cell in the dark, trembling, waiting for the soldiers to come in and shoot me - you just can't keep doing that. There's something in the human spirit that won't let you live that way. — John Marsden

Dying's a fearful popular activity these days so we often double 'em up. — John Marsden

It struck me that Lee was in many ways our true hero. Lee was the one who did the dirtiest jobs, quietly, without fuss, without going into big emotional scenes. He was so efficient, so reliable, so brave. Whenever we fell short, he made up the gap. I'm not just talking about the red hot moments, when enemy soldiers were shooting at us, when we were within a moment of death. I'm talking about the sourer times too, when we were so tired we could hardly remember to breathe, or we were so bored we'd pick at each other just for something to do, or so distressed we'd wish a soldier would come along and blow us into oblivion with an M16. At all those times Lee stood strong. He was like the Wirrawee grain silo. You could see the grain silo from miles away, tall and reliable. It stood for Wirrawee, and it gave you a safe comforting feeling to know it was there. That was how I'd felt about Lee during the war. — John Marsden

I wondered how long an adult could talk to a kid without using the word "but." About forty seconds'd be the record for most of them and that's on a good day. — John Marsden

I wonder if they realize how much I notice about them They probably haven't a clue because I never look at them or show the slightest interest. But I'm very aware of everything. I remember seeing an old film once where a father says to his son: "Son when your mouth's open you're not learning anything." If that's true then I'm well on the way to becoming the world's wisest woman. — John Marsden

Live as though you'll die tomorrow, but farm as though you'll live forever. — John Marsden

I've heard enough about what you want to do; now tell me what needs doing — John Marsden

We're home already. — John Marsden

A farm is just an accumulation of stories really. Same with people ...
"A farmer's footsteps are the best fertiliser," Dad used to say, which just means that the more you walk around your place the better everything seems to grow and flourish. — John Marsden

Silence, always my fortress, sometimes my prison — John Marsden

Some men run out of stories, of conversation, in no time at all. Either so little has happened to them or, more likely, they are incapable of understanding or retaining what has happened to them, and so they soon find themselves with nothing to say. Such a man makes a terrible companion. — John Marsden

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

There's life in his face again. It occurs to me that this is the best thing I could have done, it's actually a great way to leave, because it's giving Gavin the message that we haven't been defeated, we are up for it, we're young, we're in control of our lives again, we can charge into the future with confidence. When we round the corner of the driveway I take his hand and we run down to the gate together. — John Marsden

Being brave is a choice you make. You've got to say to yourself: I'm going to think brave. I refuse to think fear or panic. — John Marsden

It all began when ... they're funny, those words. Everyone uses them, without thinking what they mean. When does anything begin? With everyone it begins when you're born. Or before that, when your parents got married. Or before that, when your parents were born. Or when your ancestors colonised the place. Or when humans came squishing out of the mud and slime, dropped off their flippers and fins, and started to walk. But all the same, all that aside, for what's happened to us there was quite a definite beginning — John Marsden

Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted. — John Marsden

I remembered Robyn telling me the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how they'd survived: when the King chucked them in the furnace and an angel or someone went in with them. The furnace blazed all around them but they didn't burn.
And it did calm me. I don't know if it was Robyn or an angel or even God himself was in the boot, but I was starting to suspect that whenever I wanted God, he was there. Only not necessarily in the form I wanted, or doing what I wanted ... In the pitch of the black boot I clung to the image of a fiery furnace, and it wasn't the furnace or Hell either. — John Marsden

Still without looking at me, Silas responded to my question. 'He fell in love with Madame Geneva. That were the real story of his downfall, though his mother won't have it at any price.' I knew well who, or rather what, Madame Geneva was. It was one of the names people in Hell, and no doubt various other places, used for gin. Along with Hell water, strip-me-naked, bunter's tea, blue ruin and meat-drink-washing-and-lodging. And a dozen others. I had seen many men and women in love with Madame Geneva, whatever alias she went under, and she did not serve them well. — John Marsden

I live in the light,
But carry my dark with me. — John Marsden

Oh Ellie, doesn't it make your mouth water?"
"It makes me water all right," I said crudely. "But not from my mouth. — John Marsden

Anyway, I should have known better about the roses. Whatever Mum planted grew eventually. Take me for instance. — John Marsden

Action is its own kind of thinking. We had to fight now: these people were a cancer who had crept into our stomachs and infected us all. We had to be surgeons, bold and clever, not thinkers and talkers. — John Marsden

Instead of blaming us, find your true enemy. And, where the offence is, there let the great axe fall. — John Marsden

Mr. Lindell's English classes are meant to make you think I guess about yourself and people and everything. Some of the kids say it's pretty weird but they're more honest in English than they are anywhere else and they say more about what they feel...Everything that's said in English etches itself clearly and sharply in my mind like letters carved neatly into deep frost. But I never let them see how eagerly I listen. — John Marsden

Writing is not a job or activity. Nor do I sit at a desk writing for inspiration to strike. Writing is like a different kind of existence. In my life, for some of the time, I am in an alternative world, which I enter through day-dreaming or imagination. That world seems as real to me as the more tangible one of relationships and work, cars and taxes. I don't know that they're much different from each other. — John Marsden

The world was quickly forgetting us. And there was little news to report. — John Marsden

When it's all said and done, the only thing that matter in life are so damn simple. Family, friends. being safe and well. I think before the war a lot of people got sucked in by the crap on TV. They thought having the right shoes or the right jeans or the right car really mattered. Boy were we ever dumb. — John Marsden

I make people uncomfortable. The kind ones get angry because their kindness doesn't work. The unkind ones get angry because they think I'm attacking them. — John Marsden

I guess our fate is up to us now. And we've
been there before, of course. There's something quite comforting
about it in a strange way. We've learnt a few things. We know we've
got a few things going for us. A bit of imagination, a bit of guts
sometimes, a bit of spark. — John Marsden

All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention. — John Marsden

I knew then the answer to my question; the question I'd asked myself many times during this war, and many more times since it ended. When would I be able to put the war behind me? When would I be able to forget it? And I knew now that the answer was simple.
Never. I never would. Some things end. But war never does. — John Marsden

I don't want them hanging a double murder on me. It wouldn't look good on my school record. — John Marsden

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. — John Marsden

I lay there with my mind running amuck, on the brink of madness. And somehow, gradually, early Sunday morning, I became calm. I can't think of any other word for it. I was thinking about the beach poem again, and I started to feel that I was being looked after, that everything was OK. It was strange: if there was ever a time in my life when I had the right to feel alone this was it. But I lost that sense of loneliness. I felt like there was a force in the room with me, not a person, but I had a sense that there was another world, another dimension, and it would be looking after me. It was like, This isn't the only world, this is just one aspect of the whole thing, don't imagine this is all there is. — John Marsden

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. — John Marsden

Don't treat people as you think they are, treat them as you think they are capable of becoming. — John Marsden

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. — John Marsden

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. — John Marsden

Never cry over anything that can't cry over you — John Marsden

I really believe that our stories make us who we are. I don't think people are born as empty shells. They already have the makings of a personality and they have intelligence. But from the moment they're born and maybe before that they start accumulating stories and it's those stories that have the biggest effect on them. — John Marsden

We'll never feel safe again, and so it's bye-bye innocence. It's been nice knowing you, but you're gone now. — John Marsden

They say teenagers can sleep all day. I often used to look at dogs and be amazed by the way they seemed to sleep for twenty hours a day. But I envied them too. It was the kind of lifestyle I could relate to.
We didn't sleep for twenty hours, but we gave it our best shot. — John Marsden

Let no stranger intrude here, no invader trespass. This was ours, and this we would defend. — John Marsden

The only real enemy humans have is death. Every other enemy like a kid who slags you off at school or a cop who pulls you over you think they're enemies but they're not really. They're just I don't know irritations. But death that's the serious one because you know he'll win eventually. And that makes you like you've got to try to beat him. The bigger the challenge the harder you try. That's true of anything. In a way our enemies aren't these soldiers themselves our enemy is death and the soldiers are just his little local representatives. -Homer — John Marsden

We've got to stick together, that's all I know. We all drive each other crazy at times, but I don't want to end up here alone, like the Hermit. Then this really would be Hell. Humans do such terrible things to each other that sometimes my brain tells me they must be evil. But my heart still isn't convinced.
I just hope we can survive. — John Marsden

Death comes walking across the countryside swinging that scythe, and he might get you or he might not. — John Marsden

Chris says his father was born on the corner of straight and narrow ... — John Marsden

I felt that my life was permanently damaged, that I could never be normal again, that the rest of my life would just be a shell. — John Marsden

We had enough years in front of us to be serious and grown-up and respectable. Why rush it? But on the other hand we always complained when teachers and other adults treated us as kids. In fact there was nothing that annoyed me more. So it was a frustrating situation. What we needed was a two-sided badge that said 'Mature' on one side and 'Childish' on the other. Then at any moment we could turn it to whatever side we felt like being and the adults could treat us accordingly. — John Marsden

The Bible just said 'Thou shalt not kill', then told hundreds of stories of people killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath. — John Marsden

Pale as ice you passed me by;
I wondered what you really felt,
And waited through the changing times,
To see if you would one day melt.
I thought that ice would melt with warmth,
But there were thing I did not know:
The sun can touch the outer layers
But does not reach the deepest snow.
Winter sometimes seems like years,
Summer's sometimes far away,
But winter always turns to summer,
As surely as does night to day. — John Marsden

...."we saw this big dark red leech hanging off his back.
We were dancing round yelling: 'We'll burn it off! Get the petrol! Stay
still Mr Kassar, you can trust us!'
He wimped out though, and made us use salt. Very boring. — John Marsden

If you added up all the really significant episodes in your life they'd probably come to less than sixty minutes. — John Marsden

Too much thinking, not enough feeling. — John Marsden

Some people wake up drowsy. Some people wake up energized. I wake up dead. — John Marsden

He carried Hell with him, as we all did, like a little load on our backs that we hardly noticed most of the time, or like a huge great hump of suffering that bent us over with its weight. — John Marsden

I remember Robyn saying once 'Talking about yourself can be selfish or generous'. When I asked what she meant, she said: 'If you never talk about yourself, about your problems and stuff, that's selfish, because you're not giving your friends a chance to help you. And if you talk about yourself all the time, you're selfish and boring. — John Marsden

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

Let's go home,' Homer said, 'to Hell. — John Marsden

Sometimes I got worried that my memory was falling apart. — John Marsden

It was the world-without-adults daydream. In my dream I'd never quite figured out where the adults went but we kids were free to roam, to help ourselves to anything we wanted. We'd pick up a Merc from a showroom when we wanted wheels, and when it ran out of petrol we'd get another one. We'd change cars the way I change socks. We'd sleep in different mansions every night, going to new houses instead of putting new sheets on the beds. Life would be one long party.
Yes, that had been the dream. — John Marsden

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. — John Marsden

So, am I a genius? — John Marsden

It's funny about a face, how big a difference it makes. I mean, one day you look in th mirror and you think, yeah, that's me, that's my face. And then another day ... you think, that's not me, that's not my face. So am I my face? I mean is that all I am? — John Marsden

A beggar who goes fishing may use a worm which has feasted on a king as his bait. And the fisherman may eat the fish caught with that bait. What does this tells us? Well, it tells us that a king may progress through the guts of a pauper. — John Marsden

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

What happened next played itself out like a terrible drama with two spectators. Lee and I stayed on our side of the fence, like an audience. Of course if the bull had wanted to smash through the fence he could have done so any time, but luckily nearly all cattle live and die without learning that. It's like school, most students go from kindergarten to Year 12 without noticing that they could do a fair amount of damage if they wanted to. They stay inside the fence. — John Marsden

A bad black horse steals
Steals into my head
And moves across the landscape
Of my mind, while I sleep.
He does what he likes in there.
Next day I feel
The damage.
In the quiet mist
I watch her go.
It feels like snow.
There's a feeling that I get.
I walk back home
Sad and slow. — John Marsden