“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, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“She asked me what type of contraceptive I use.
Underwear. Keeping it on prevents pregnancy.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“Your problems are out there. But they're small. They only grow out of proportion when they climb inside your head.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“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.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“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.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“And when you'd finished running you'd be thousands of miles away from people who love you and your problem would still be there except you'd have nobody to help you.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“To have somone hold you could be the greatest medicine of all.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“Because photos are testimony that someone did live. A reminder of past we may have loved or hated. A piece of our lives.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“Simple dreams are the hardest to come true”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“You can't think for other people. Nor can you feel for them or be them. They have to do that for themselves.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“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, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“I think that we vote, not to get the best party in, but to keep the worst party out.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“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, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“We don't even love each other.
I do a bit, you know.
You do what a bit?
You know. Like you...whatever...love you a bit.
I think I kind of love you too.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“I'll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself...I'll run to be emancipated.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“It's too late. Seventeen-year-olds don't need fathers.
Oh god. I'm thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can't even begin to think what my daughter needs.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“Mama says that satisfaction isn't what I should search for. Respect is. Respect?
I detest that word. Probably because in this world you have to respect the wrong people for the wrong reasons.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“I never thought meeting you would be this boring. I thought we'd put our Italian emotion into gear and scream the place down. I never expected indifference.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“One day" came.
Because finally I understood.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“You know something,Jacob, I'd hate to be as smart as Jonh. I mean he was really, really smart, and to be that smart means you know all the answers, and when you know all the answers there's no room for dreaming.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“I would rather die than ever see you suffering this way. I don't want you or any child I ever have or any woman I ever love to go through or feel what you're going through, but it's happened and I don't know what to do.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“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, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“Fifteen minutes later I was an expert. That's all you need. I think I was even getting the upper hand, which is very simple with a guy. Anything seems to turn them on.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“I've been passionate about two things in my life. One was Christina Alibrandi. The other is Josephine Alibrandi.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“I'm scared to die," I whispered as Michael walked in.
"He was scared to live," he said kissing my forehead.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“I just don't trust people who have bodies that change with their moods.
Well then you'll never trust the opposite sex again.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“You're the father of the person who is my life.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“Josie, life is not a Mills and Boon book. People fall out of love. People disappoint other people and they find it very hard to forgive.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
“What is it? A prize or something?
No. It's not a prize and I'm not a prize. But it's mine. It belongs to me and I can only give it away once, and I want to be so sure when it happens. I don't want to say that the first time for me was bad or it didn't mean a thing.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from Looking for Alibrandi
Melina Marchetta
Born place: Sydney, Australia
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“No, I was just trying to burn a hole in the side of your face with my laser vision. It didn't work.”
― H.M. Ward, quote from Damaged 2
“And that's the moment when you realize that hopes and dreams are as fucked up as fairytales.”
― E.K. Blair, quote from Bang
“I discovered hunger don’t make you resentful. Hunger makes you slow and brooding, like you are just waiting and waiting. You don’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything. Hunger makes you set around, makes you want to go to bed early and sleep late. You don’t want to think about nothing, for if you think you will think about good things to eat. When you’re hungry you don’t want to think at all. You want time to pass. You are waiting for something to happen. You don’t want to waste effort. You are saving the fat on your bones and the strength in your blood. You are saving your breath. When you’re hungry you don’t even daydream a lot. You just drift through the hours and the first thing you know another day is over, another night has gone by. Mostly you want to forget.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, quote from Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“We're growing up and I don't like it," said Tacy, as they say at Heinz's later, drinking coffee.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
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The Manual of Detect...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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