“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, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“If you weren't driving, I'd kiss you senseless," I tell him.
He swerves to the side of the road and stops the car abruptly.
"Not driving any more.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“What do you want from me?" he asks.
What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him.
More.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“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.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Hold my hand because I might disappear.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“He stops and looks at me. 'I'm here because of you. You're my priority. Your happiness, in some fucked way, is tuned in to mine. Get that through your thick skull. Would I like it any other way? Hell, yes, but I don't think that will be happening in my lifetime.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“When I turn around, he cups my face in his hands and he kisses me so deeply that I don't know who is breathing for who, but his mouth and tongue taste like warm honey. I don't know how long it lasts, but when I let go of him, I miss it already.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“He is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and it's not about his face, but the life force I can see in him. It's the smile and the pure promise of everything he has to offer. Like he's saying, 'Here I am world, are you ready for so much passion and beauty and goodness and love and every other word that should be in the dictionary under the word life?' Except this boy is dead, and the unnaturalness of it makes me want to pull my hair out with Tate and Narnie and Fitz and Jude's grief all combined. It makes me want to yell at the God that I wish I didn't believe in. For hogging him all to himself. I want to say, 'You greedy God. Give him back. I needed him here.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“From this distance everything is so bloody perfect.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“How can you just forget a person completely until the moment you see his face again?”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Never,' he tells me in a tone full of ice, 'underestimate who or what I care for.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“These people have history and I crave history. I crave someone knowing me so well that they can tell what I'm thinking. Jonah Griggs takes my hand under the table and links my fingers with his and I know that I would sacrifice almost anything just to keep this state of mind, for the rest of the week at least.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“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, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“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, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“No," I say, looking up at Griggs. "It's actually because my heart belongs to someone else." And if I could bottle the look on his face, I'd keep it by my bedside for the rest of my life.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“What are you so sad about? We're going to know him for the rest of our lives.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“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.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Maybe memories should be left the way they are.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“What's with what you're wearing?" Griggs asks while we stand outside waiting for the others.
"It's pretty hideous, isn't it?" I say.
"Don't force me to look at it," he says. "It's see-through."
That kills conversation for a couple of seconds.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Guess what?' Fitz said.
'I don't know,' Jude said. 'What? Narnie smiled?' He glanced at her for the first time.
'When you guys see a Narnie smile, it's like a revelation,' Webb said, gathering her towards him.
Jude stopped in front of her and, with both hands cupping her face, tried to make a smile. Narnie flinched.
'Leave her alone,' Tate said.
'I need a revelation,' Jude said. 'And you're the only one that can give me one, Narns.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“My body becomes a raft and there's this part of me that wants just literally to go with the flow. To close my eyes and let it take me. But I know sooner or later I will have to get out, that I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes - the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“I'm very disturbed to find out that the leader of the Townies has a soul and I'm beginning to develop a bit of a crush on him.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Don't believe in God. Love the world just the way it is. ”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“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.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“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.”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
“Do you think I don't want him to be gone more than you do? I do. Because I need to know that I can still breathe properly when he's not around. If something happens to him, I have to know that I won't fall apart...”
― Melina Marchetta, quote from On the Jellicoe Road
Melina Marchetta
Born place: Sydney, Australia
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“It is hard to believe that nearly all the vast apparent variety in Nature results from the monotony of repeatedly combining just these three basic actions. But it does. I'll outline a bit of how some of this variety arises.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
“Was this how a mutiny was sparked? In a moment of heedlessness, so that one became a stranger to the person one had been a moment before? Or was it the other way around? That this was when one recognized the stranger that one had always been to oneself; that all one’s loyalties and beliefs had been misplaced?”
― Amitav Ghosh, quote from The Glass Palace
“You have the right to refuse to do anything that anyone asks of you, but that doesn’t mean that to refuse is always wise.” “But I have the right to be unwise, isn’t that true?” “Yes,” she said. “You’re a free woman. We are all free women here. Freedom is important, just as obedience is important. Each has its place.”
― Catherine M. Wilson, quote from The Warrior's Path
“Did you really think I was too fragile to know what Deryn was?"
"Fragile?" Volger looked about. "I hadn't thought so, but now I find you brooding in a bathroom. This doesn't speak well of your sturdiness.”
― Scott Westerfeld, quote from Goliath
“James Potter moved slowly along the narrow aisles of the train, peering as nonchalantly as he could into each compartment. To those inside, he probably looked as if he was searching for someone, some friend or group of confidantes with whom to pass the time during the trip, and this was intentional. The last thing that James wanted anyone to notice was that, despite the bravado he had so recently displayed with his younger brother Albus on the platform, he was nervous. His stomach knotted and churned as if he’d had half a bite of one of Uncles Ron and George’s Puking Pastilles. He opened the folding door at the end of the passenger car and stepped carefully through the passage into the next one. The first compartment was full of girls. They were talking animatedly to one another, already apparently the best of friends despite the fact that, most likely, they had only just met. One of them glanced up and saw him staring. He quickly looked away, pretending to peer out the window behind them, toward the station which still sat bustling with activity. Feeling his cheeks go a little red, he continued down the corridor. If only Rose was a year older she’d be here with him. She was a girl, but she was his cousin and they’d grown up together. It would’ve been nice to have at least one familiar face along with him.”
― G. Norman Lippert, quote from James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing
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