Top 300 Melina Marchetta Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “I would pick them when they bloomed. And when she called me home for supper, I’d place them in her hair and the contrast would take my breath away.”

— Melina Marchetta

152. “God knows what possessed me, but having that science book in my hand propelled me to immediate action. So I hit her with it.”

— Melina Marchetta

153. “He hesitated, remembering something Finnikin had said to him on their journey. That somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.”

— Melina Marchetta

154. “Yes, I did,” he says casually. “In the first minute I met them. Then in the second minute, I decided I wasn’t going to be into dudes who treat others like crap only because they can. And then in the third, I actually stopped noticing they were around. I’m easily bored around stupid people.”

— Melina Marchetta

155. “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

156. “Maybe she’d always been there. Maybe strangers enter your heart first and then you spent the rest of your life searching for them.”

— Melina Marchetta

157. “He kisses her and wants to beg her and the others to never give up on him. Ever. But he gets a feeling that he would be preaching to the converted.”

— Melina Marchetta

158. “Up in the distance the whistle of the wind sang to her from the mountain. From Lucian’s mountain. It beckoned and taunted and she wanted to run towards it. To be enveloped in its coat of fleece and to hear its safe sounds.”

— Melina Marchetta

159. “I ignore Jaco Coote when I see him. I’m not sure why. It’s not as if I dislike him or anything. I think I ignore him because if I look at him I might find that he’s looking at me, and I’m not sure where that would lead us.”

— Melina Marchetta

160. “See them together and you will feel a force that will take your breath away.”

— Melina Marchetta

161. “When I was eight years old,” the priest-king confessed, “I wanted to be a god.” The holy man looked around the ragged tent. “Perhaps this is my punishment, but between you and me, I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do.”

— Melina Marchetta

162. “He bursts out laughing. It’s short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction’s already mine.”

— Melina Marchetta

163. “Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories, Florenza of Nebia. Remember that, or you’ll be vomiting for the rest of your life.”

— Melina Marchetta

164. “Because people with that much spirit frighten the hell out of me. They make me want to be a better person when I know it’s not possible.”

— Melina Marchetta

165. “I look around for the counter that sells my scent, but I’m so petrified that if I spray it in the air, nothing will come out. And then Mia’s scent seems to fade away and everything else fades away with it and I know that all I have to do to recapture it is press the spray button again.”

— Melina Marchetta

166. “I don’t despise you for what you allowed to happen to me. I despise you because when I was released, you refused to be found and I needed you more than anything in my life. Not to mend my broken bones, Arjuro. I needed my brother to mend my broken spirit.”

— Melina Marchetta

167. “They never leave home without their safety nets and I think, good for them, but the thing with safety nets is this. I got tangled in them so many times and the Stella girls always seemed to leave me dangling, upside down, to the point where I almost couldn’t breathe anymore. So I dance.”

— Melina Marchetta

168. “He came to understand the difference between the gods’ blessed and a smart man. His uncle was one. His father the other.”

— Melina Marchetta

169. “The worst thing about the slivers of light is that you get to catch people’s expressions for only a split second; then they disappear again, and in between you are forced to think about what it is that could make a person look so devastated.”

— Melina Marchetta

170. “You’re the father of the person who is my life.”

— Melina Marchetta

171. “The next night he asked Jonah if he could take $9.49 out of Jonah’s secret stash that only Danny and his mum and Jack knew about. Jonah kept it in his sock drawer next to a photograph of Jonah and a girl with sad eyes, taken in one of those railway station photo booths.”

— Melina Marchetta

172. “It’ll never go back to the way it was, Frankie. But you have to make sure it goes forward.”

— Melina Marchetta

173. “Phaedra shook her head. “If your people mean no offense, they should not speak their thoughts out loud in front of their children, Tesadora. Because it will be their children who come to slaughter us one day, all because of careless words passed down by their elders who meant no harm.”

— Melina Marchetta

174. “Just having my own time-out; a bit of self-pity here, a bit of self-loathing there.”

— Melina Marchetta

175. “And suddenly I know I have to go. But this time without being chased by the Brigadier, without experiencing the kindness of a postman from Yass, and without taking along a Cadet who will change the way I breath for the rest of my life.”

— Melina Marchetta

176. “Sometimes he felt he needed to inhale it and place it in a storage are in his soul. Just in case.”

— Melina Marchetta

177. “Finnikin met her eyes, wanting desperately to make sense of her request. Why Pietrodore? But in a moment the realization hit, and he smiled in wonder. “It’s not chance, Trevanion,” he said, kicking the golden carpet of leaves at his feet. He ran back toward her, sliding part of the way until he could grab her by the waist and swing her around. “You are a goddess, Evanjalin of the Monts.”

— Melina Marchetta

178. “I have an aunt and I have a Griggs and this is what it’s like to have connections with people.”

— Melina Marchetta

179. “When I grow, I’m going to be my mother.”

— Melina Marchetta

180. “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.”

— Melina Marchetta

181. “Where did this come from? Do you know what this is? Luca is going to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and squirt it on his tongue. It’s like drugs for ten-year-olds. Today it’s Ice Magic. Tomorrow, heroin.”

— Melina Marchetta

182. “I love it when you’re demented like this.”

— Melina Marchetta

183. “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

184. “He was very solemn; she wasn’t. Phaedra couldn’t stop smiling.”

— Melina Marchetta

185. “I think if I’m ever asked to recall what Year 12 was all about, I’ll remember it as one big cappuccino experience.”

— Melina Marchetta

186. “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

187. “Girls under the age of fourteen are the most frightening creatures I have ever come across. – Jonah Griggs.”

— Melina Marchetta

188. “The pages aren’t numbered, so I don’t know whether I have the beginning or end or whether it’s in sequence but these days I’m not really looking for continuity. All I’m after is something that makes sense to me.”

— Melina Marchetta

189. “Oh, you’ve outdone me twice now, you queen of forgiveness. The ring’s a promise of peace and I’m greedy with hope. It’s a song that we sing in a tongue that we share. And though you say it’s a gift from a king to a king, I say it’s a sign from a queen to a queen.”

— Melina Marchetta

190. “He remembers the times they’d walk toward him in the playground with that same look on their faces, but double in number with Siobhan and Tara. “It’s the four horsewomen of the apocalypse,” Jimmy Hailler would say. “They’re going to make us do something we don’t want to do.” “We’re not going to give in,” Tom would say. But they did. Always.”

— Melina Marchetta

191. “It’s called peaceful coexistence, Santangelo. You should try it and if it works we may sell the idea to the Israelis and Palestinians.”

— Melina Marchetta

192. “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

193. “Froi heard Zabat’s voice echo over and over again throughout the gorge. Wonderful. The gods had found a way of multiplying the idiot’s voice.”

— Melina Marchetta

194. “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

195. “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.”

— Melina Marchetta

196. “Jimmy’s wedding day is literally the best day of his life. He hasn’t had many of those, so he’s able to differentiate. After the barbecue is lit, he holds Rosie’s hand and they watch it all in silence. And like always, Jimmy is amazed by the kindness of strangers.”

— Melina Marchetta

197. “Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?”

— Melina Marchetta

198. “And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for. He wished that he had never met any of them.”

— Melina Marchetta

199. “See, I remember love. That’s what people don’t understand.”

— Melina Marchetta

200. “And it was this image that was stamped on the hearts and minds of all who were present that day. Of Froi of the Exiles holding the future of Lumatere in his hands.”

— Melina Marchetta