Quotes from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Some people wake up drowsy. Some people wake up energized. I wake up dead.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“the biggest risk is to take no risk. or to take crazy risks.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“We believed we were safe. That was the big fantasy.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“The biggest risk, is to take no risks”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“In the midst of death we are in life”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“So, that was Nature's way. The mosquito felt pain and panic but the dragonfly knew nothing of cruelty. Humans would call it evil, the big dragonfly destroying the mosquito and ignoring the little insects suffering. Yet humans hated mosquitoes too, calling them vicious and bloodthirsty. All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Chris says his father was born on the corner of straight and narrow...”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“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, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“In this life of froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone.
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Homer was so used to being told off in his life that you might as well have told a rock off for being sedimentary,”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Human laws, moral laws, religious laws, they seemed artificial and basic, almost childlike.”
― John Marsden, quote from Tomorrow, When the War Began

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“At the same time, we may not as a culture be fond of old-fashioned supernaturalism, but we certainly like spirituality in whatever form we can get it. I suspect that if anyone other than Jesus (Krishna, say, or Buddha) were suddenly put forward as being due for a second coming, millions in our postsecular society would embrace such a thing uncritically, leaving Enlightenment rationalism huffing and puffing in the rear. We are a puzzled and confused generation, embracing any and every kind of nonrationalism that may offer us a spiritual shot in the arm while lapsing back into rationalism (in particular, the old modernist critiques) whenever we want to keep traditional or orthodox Christianity at bay.”
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