Melina Marchetta Quotes & Sayings

She looks at Sam. 'Close your ears if you don't want to know what I suspect to be the sex of your child,' she says, and he blocks his ears.
'It's Sam's?' Jonesey asks, surprised, just as he gets a message.
'Where have you been, Jonesey?' Bernadette says. 'In La La Land?'
'Contrary to popular belief, I think it has no penis,' Georgie whispers to them while Lucia covers Sam's ears.
Jonesey looks up from his text messaging, shocked. 'Poor little guy. — Melina Marchetta

I think were made up of all these different pieces an every time someone goes your left with less of yourself. — Melina Marchetta

When one day fate visits us again, Jessa comes running into Hannah's house to tell us the news that they've caught the serial killer. Her tone is hushed and I try hard not to look at Jude, who is working on the skirting boards. But I can feel the humour in his gaze as it falls on me and I know that I will never live down the fact that I suspected him.
When I ask her, "Who?" slightly curious, she's already out the door looking for Hannah and Tate. "No one important!" she shouts from the other room. "Just some postman in Yass." I look at Jude's face and I see it whiten and we vow never ever to tell the others. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love. — Melina Marchetta

I want you to know that I remember the conversations we had in Year Twelve, when you told me you wanted to do a cultural studies degree because you believed in trade, not aid, and you believed that the only way was to ask the questions and listen to the needs of the people and I remember thinking that exact moment, I want to change the world with her. And I remember feeling that again in Georgie's attic. That's a pretty powerful gift you have there, Ms. Finke. To make the laziest guy around want to change the world with you. So next time you remember standing in your bedroom naked, know that it is the most amazing view from any angle, especially the one where we get to see inside.
Love always,
Always,
Tom — Melina Marchetta

You know what we call you? Bitch Spice, Burtch Spice, Slut Spice and Stupid Spice.'
Thomas Mackee says this — Melina Marchetta

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 ... Mighty men have moments of great despair that common people do not want to know about. — Melina Marchetta

I wrote to you months ago and you sent him here on an errand about water fountains."
"He said you loved water fountains. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

We look at each other for a moment and for once I feel awkward. It's not that I'm not into humility; I've just never had to practise it. — Melina Marchetta

Don't ever ask me again if I hate living anywhere with you and Jasmina. This Rock reminds me of the boy I was and being with you in the palace reminds me of the man I want to be.'
'Not just any man,' she whispered. 'A King. Mine. — Melina Marchetta

My king?"

"Yes, my queen?"

"Take me home. — Melina Marchetta

We approach the house and I wave at Jimmy.
"And if he thinks he's eating with us, he's got another thing coming," my dad says.
Jimmy approaches us and takes the shopping bags from me, looking inside them.
"Lamb roast. Am I invited? — Melina Marchetta

Thomas Mackee and Jimmy Hailler grasp each other's hands, one of those brothers-in-arms-we-fought-in-Nam-together grips, but outside this room I don't think they relate. — Melina Marchetta

So what does the winner get in the end?" Tate asked.
"They get to sit around with the losers and say, 'I am King Xavier of the world.' Repeat after me."
"And me?" Tate asked.
"You get to be my queen."
"How come you're the leader of the community?" Narnie asked, almost smiling. "Why can't Tate be?"
Webb looked at his sister, grinning. "Why can't you, Narnie?"
Fitz leaned his head on Narnie's shoulder. "And I'll be your queen?"
"You can be the eunuch," Jude said, shoving him out of the way, "and I'll be her prince." He bowed and took Narnie's hand, kissing it, and their eyes met. It was awkward for a moment until Narnie looked away. — Melina Marchetta

For a moment I can't help thinking how decent he is - that there's some hope for him beyond the obnoxious image he displays. Maybe deep down he is a sensitive guy, who sees us as real people with real issues. I want to say something nice. Some kind of thanks. I stand there, rehearsing it in my mind.
"Oh my God," he says, "did you see that girl's tits?"
Maybe not today. — Melina Marchetta

It's my birthday today. I'm not 17 anymore. The 17 Janis Ian sang about where one learns the truth. But what she failed to mention is that you keep on learning truths after 17 and I want to keep on learning truths till the day I die. — Melina Marchetta

I can do oblivion, you know. I can do it better than him. I'd like to see how he likes it if I just disappear from his life without a word. It was okay for him to keep in contact with Georgie and my mum, but not once did he pick up the phone or write to me. Like I was fucking nothing to him. Like I'm nothing to no one. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

But you're almost eighteen. You're old enough. Everyone else is doing it.
And next year someone is going to say to someone else 'but you're only sixteen, everyone else is doing it' Or one day someone will tell your daughter that she's only thirteen and everyone else is doing it. I don't want to do it because everyone else is doing it. — Melina Marchetta

Bribes over two dollars are tax deductible — Melina Marchetta

Do you miss being friends with Santangelo?" I ask her after the lights are out and we're almost asleep.
"What makes you think were friends?"
"Everything."
I hear her yawn.
"Being enemies with him is better." she tells me. There's a long pause and I think she's going to say something more but she doesn't and it's just silence for a long while. — Melina Marchetta

Do what I don't got the strength to do myself — Melina Marchetta

But then Froi looked back to where his work lay unfinished and it made him sad because there had been something about the touch of earth in his hands that made him feel worthwhile. — Melina Marchetta

I'm frightened that one morning there will not be enough to keep me going. — Melina Marchetta

Beatriss looked away, fighting tears. She gripped their hands. "I'm forgetting what the truth is, friends," she said. "We were here, Lady Beatriss. We saw it all, so when you forget what the truth is, you come to us and we'll remind you. — Melina Marchetta

I'm going to paste it up on the wall so my dickhead uncle sees it the moment he walks in and stops going on about me losing it. — Melina Marchetta

Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything. — Melina Marchetta

She pointed above the little king's crib where a cutout piece of parchment hung from the ceiling. Froi's eyes followed her finger across the ceiling to the wall, where the light from the moon made a shape of a rabbit. — Melina Marchetta

Because we don't live in a society anymore, Tom. We live in an economy. We're not citizens. We're customers. — Melina Marchetta

What about the contacts your mum had?" his dad asked.
"I rang and spoke to four very polite computers who gave me all these options and then cut out on me. Then I tried the post office, because they were advertising, and I spoke to another computer. Very rude, that one. Don't think it recognized 'Are you shitting me?' as an option."
"You know why that is?"
"Why is that, Dominic?" Tom had asked drolly, because he knew he was going to be told why.
"Because we don't live in a society anymore, Tom. We live in an economy. We're not citizens. We're customers. That's what this government's done to us. — Melina Marchetta

I feel tears well in my eyes and I can't even stop them from happening. I can't stop anything from happening in my life. — Melina Marchetta

...She believes the money made would be better spent on a horse, and he believes they need a new barn. But then later they would forget all their anger and he would hold her fiercely and never let her go."

"And he'd place marigolds in her hair?" she asked. He clasped her hands against his and watched her blood seep through the lines of his skin.

"And he would love her until the day he died," he said. He placed his other bloody hand against those imprinted for eternity on the kingdom walls — Melina Marchetta

See them together and you will feel a force that will take your breath away. — Melina Marchetta

Woman, I'm trying to fight here! Or has that escaped your attention? — Melina Marchetta

One of Sir Topher's rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind. — Melina Marchetta

He took her face in his bloody hands. I'll come and find you wherever you are. I'll not stop breathing until I do. So you're going to have to promise me that you won't lose hope. That you will keep yourself alive. — Melina Marchetta

I fear that I will do something to bring harm to those I love," Froi said. "So I follow their rules to ensure that I won't."
"But what if you bring harm or fail to protect those you don't know? Or don't love? Will you care as much?"
"Probably not."
"Then choose another bond. One written by yourself. Because it is what you do for strangers that counts in the end. — Melina Marchetta

Mercy', Finnikin said, grinning from ear to ear. 'We're going to have a bed full of children and I'll have to holler out to my wife, Hello there! It's been a long time since we last spoke! — Melina Marchetta

Don't let them take away our little king, Froi. Not the Avanosh people or Bestiano. I'm begging you, Froi." That she had to speak the words broke something inside of him. "I will protect you," he whispered. "I will never let anything happen to you or our child. — Melina Marchetta

This morning, my mother didn't get out of bed. — Melina Marchetta

It's hard to explain what happens when jazz and punk fuse with a violin twist but it works. Probably because Anson Choi takes off his shirt while he's playing the saxophone. Whoever's not chatting up a Cadet or a girl from Darling House or playing chess with the guys is watching the band. I turn into a
groupie. — Melina Marchetta

I think back to my dream of the boy, because in it I find solace. I like that word. I'm going to make it my word of the year. There is just something about that boy that makes me feel like I belong. Belong. Long to be. Weird word, but semantics aside, it is up there with solace. — Melina Marchetta

My dad goes along with it because no one in my family has ever pretended that my mother doesn't make all the decisions. — Melina Marchetta

Does she belong to you, Finnikin?" Yata asked, her eyes piercing. "No," he said after a moment. "But she belongs to my heart. I feel her absence strongly and it brings me ... sorrow. — Melina Marchetta

As Froi crossed this icy tomb, it occurred to him that he might never see Lord August and Lady Abian again. That he had never told them the truth. Finn and Isaboe had taught him to love, but the village of Sayles had taught him to belong. — Melina Marchetta

I am disappointed. Violette knows how I feel about smart girls turning into needy sex objects for dumb boys. — Melina Marchetta

Part of Quintana had left this world and Froi knew that part of him was gone as well. — Melina Marchetta

Come here," she says.
"No, you come here."
"I said it first."
"Rock paper scissors."
"No. Because you'll do nerdy calculations and work out what I chose the last six times and then you'll win."
Will pushes away from the table and his hand snakes out and he pulls her toward him and Tom figures that Will was always going to go to her first. — Melina Marchetta

It's way too tense. Someone's either going to get into a fight or cry. Neither option is preferable. — Melina Marchetta

Nothing worse than a weak man with ambition, who gains power because those before him died rather than because his ideals were grand. — Melina Marchetta

When it was over, she gathered him in her arms. And told him the terrible irony of her life.
That she had wanted to be dead all those years while her brother had been alive. That had been her sin.
And this was her penance.
Wanting to live when everyone else seemed dead. — Melina Marchetta

My ideal community? Anywhere but here. — Melina Marchetta

This is the best night of my life," Raffy says, crying.
"Raffy, half our House has burnt down," I say wearily. "We don't have a kitchen."
"Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?" she asks. "We can double up in our rooms and have a barbecue every night like the Cadets."
Silently I vow to keep Raffy around for the rest of my life. — Melina Marchetta

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

Wives can replace their husbands, Georgie," her aunt once told her. "But sisters can't replace their brothers. — Melina Marchetta

Imagine the state of one's mind if they were to recall its details. All those months cocooned and then the onslaught of this ugly world. Lights and noise and strangeness. It's no wonder we scream with terror at our birth. — Melina Marchetta

But what if I don't?" she argued. "I don't know him. How can I love one that I don't know? I'm frightened to see him. I've never seen a little creature. How will I know he's not all wrong?"
"And if he is all wrong, what will you do?" Froi had asked.
She thought for a moment. "I'll hold him tight and tell him that we'll be wrong for this world together. — Melina Marchetta

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 me 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. Jonah Griggs is my second reminder to never ever trust another human being. My mother was first. — Melina Marchetta

He held her against him and for once he understood what she had felt every day that he had known her — Melina Marchetta

Froi saw the foolishness of dreamers, and he decided he'd like to die so foolish. With a dream in his heart about the possibilities, rather than a chain of hopelessness. — Melina Marchetta

Did he say my name?"
"Did he have to? When your name is written all over his heart? — Melina Marchetta

I'm a waste of space. — Melina Marchetta

Everything's going to be fine. She'll be back at work soon. Let's just keep the house clean. Oh yeah, I want to say, because a clean house will result in peace in the Middle East as well. — Melina Marchetta

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 [ ... ] — Melina Marchetta

You've been quiet these past days," Trevanion said. "Are you going to tell me what the ... exchange of words was about?"
"Who said there was an exchange of words?" Finnikin asked with irritation.
"When a woman says 'I hope you fall under your horse' and 'catch your death, then see if I grieve you,'" Perri said, "then there's been an exchange of words."
Finnikin glared at him.
"In my humble opinion. — Melina Marchetta

The moment he sees a glimpse of underwear, he will be officially in Sicko Land and he will be forced to make some kind of noise. Flushing, coughing, heavy footsteps. Talk to himself out loud. The moment he sees anything that in anyway will be considered a sexual act between ...
"Stani, the bins are done!" he yells out. — Melina Marchetta

I heard your song the moment we were born. And years later, it dragged me back from the lake of the half-dead when all I wanted to do was die. Each time someone tried to kill me, it sang its tune and gave me hope. — Melina Marchetta

One day Tate was there, a ghost of Tate — Melina Marchetta

But Froi looked around with wonder.
As if he had never seen the world from up so high before. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

Does it help?" he asks. "The e-mailing."
She nods. "A tiny bit. It's strange. You're writing a letter to someone who's never going to read it, so it kind of frees you up a bit. — Melina Marchetta

He takes the coffee from her, needing fresh air because if he doesn't get out of this room, he'll suffocate from memories. He's felt like that for more than a month now. There's no particular reason for it, but sometimes he feels like he can't breathe, like his body is shutting down. — Melina Marchetta

He chanced a look at her and saw the flare of something in her eyes. A salve to the emptiness that sometimes threatened to suffocate him. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

Oh God, Frankie, I breathe in rhythm with that man. You think that's not my flesh and blood after all these years? — Melina Marchetta

I wanted to say, 'Your face has been taken by another, so I've forgotten the malice in your eyes and the bitterness of your mouth. — Melina Marchetta

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 him?" she said, her voice shaking with anger. "No," he said sadly. "Pity him. Or give him new rules. — Melina Marchetta

His seed will issue kings, but he will never reign
For she would be Queen of Lumatere.
But he would be king to her. — Melina Marchetta

And I don't know why, but I sit on that step until the last person's gone home and I'm still grinning. Like someone who has a bit of a crush. — Melina Marchetta

He stares at the them, mid mouthful. 'Please,' he says, after he's swallowed. 'It's bad enough that the middle-aged are having sex, without thinking of my aunt doing it. And I don't know why someone just doesn't tell Sam to use a condom instead of impregnating the women of the inner-west. — Melina Marchetta

We'd go to bed furious with each other, and then she'd wake me in the middle of the night and come and lie on my bed and we'd talk for hours, about nothing and everything, and she'd let me touch the scars on her stomach - the scars from where they cut me out of her. — Melina Marchetta

Sit back and get some sleep. Oh great. So if we have an accident and I'm asleep my resistance toward fighting death will be down and I'll wake up in a morgue. — Melina Marchetta

Back in Georgie's attic, he yanks the phone out of the socket and begins scrolling down the names under dialed calls, praying to anyone who will listen. God. Baby Jesus. Saint Thomas the doubter. Saint Whoever, patron saint of losers. Praying, Please, please, don't let it be true.
The first name shatters him.
The second makes his head spin. — Melina Marchetta

Because your grief at what you saw in those moments was too much for her to bear. Your pain made her weak. Her pain made you strong. Light and dark. Dark and light. — Melina Marchetta

Then she was laughing. They both were, and the savage teeth were the most joyous sight Phaedra had seen for a long time. It was as if they were dancing. There it was. Suddenly the strangeness of Quintana of Charyn's face made sense. Because it was a face meant for laughing, but it had never been given a chance. — Melina Marchetta

And he saw it in her eyes. Still. The belief that there could be someone other than herself. You, he wanted to shout. You. No one but you. Stupid, stupid girl. — Melina Marchetta

I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do. — Melina Marchetta

Ned?' he says, after a while. 'Oi, Ned?'
'What?'
'If someone says to you that the guy they're going out with doesn't have to prove how smart he is, what's your response?'
'That he's dumb.'
'And if he has a sixpack?'
'Dumb jock.'
'Not too intense.'
'Dumb jock with no personality.'
'And they see eye to eye?'
Ned pauses. 'With the spitfire from Dili?'
'Same,' Tom corrects.
Ned holds up a hand to where Tara would reach him in height.
'Dumb jock with no personality and short-man syndrome.'
'Thanks, Ned.'
'Anytime. — Melina Marchetta

I wrote to you for a year and you never wrote back. I 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 — Melina Marchetta

Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?" Did I wonder? When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know? Wonder dies. — Melina Marchetta

My old school, St Stella's, only goes to Year Ten and most of my friends now go to Pius Senior College, but my mother wouldn't allow it because she says the girls there leave with limited options and she didn't bring me up to have limitations placed upon me. If you know my mother, you'll sense there's an irony there, based on the fact that she is the Queen of the Limitation Placers in my life. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

I'll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself ... I'll run to be emancipated. — Melina Marchetta

It's like geographical humor. You just don't get it unless you were there. — Melina Marchetta

Hold my hand because I might disappear. — Melina Marchetta

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. — Melina Marchetta

Everyone agreed that Lucian would ruin this. — Melina Marchetta