Melina Marchetta

“How can you just forget a person completely until the moment you see his face again?”

“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.”

“I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.”

“He took my hand, made me stand on the branch and asked, "What can you see from here?" "Nothing" I said,"Know what I can see? From this distance everything is so bloody perfect".”

“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.”

“Sometimes Webb believed that he would never experience a better feeling than when he was looking at her, would never see anything or anybody bursting with more life and spirit. Sometimes he felt he needed to inhale it and place it in a storage area in his soul. Just in case. ”

“Left alone with the dial tone...excuse me, operator, why is no one listening?”

“Promise me you'll never stop dreaming.”

“It's a weird smile, but it reaches his eyes and I bottle it. And I put it in my ammo pack that's kept right next to my soul and Justine's spirit and Siobhan's hope and Tara's passions. Because if I'm going to wake up one morning and not be able to get out of bed, I'm going to need everything I've got to fight this disease that could be sleeping inside of me.”

“Comfort zones are overrated. They make you lazy.”

“You go shake your foundations, Will. I think it's about time I saved myself.”

“When I grow up, I'm going to be my mother.”

“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.”

“I stand up, sure of one thing and one thing only. That my father will come and get me. He won't give me a lecture, he won't try to teach me a lesson. He won't ask a thousand questions or ask me to apologize. He'll just come and get me. "Just tell me where you are.”

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

“Do something that scares you everyday.”

“Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Santangelo is irritated. "We're not suppose to be collaborating. It's supposed to be a war and you're supposed to stick to the boundaries.""We've seen you in your jocks," she reminds him. "Taylor and Griggs have pashed. You've broken into your father's police station for us. Don't you think the war has lost a bit of its tension?”

“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.”

“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.”

“As I walk back to the school on my own, I realise I'm crying. So I go back to the stories I've read about the five and I try to make sense of their lives because in making sense of theirs, I may understand mine.”

“Instinct tells me to go to Hannah's, but she doesn't live there anymore and that's when I realize the major difference between my mother and Hannah. My mother deserted me at the 7-Eleven, hundred of kilometers away from home.Hannah, however, did the unforgivable.She deserted me in our own backyard.”

“Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known.”

“From this distance everything is so bloody perfect.”

“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...”

“Great to know that I'm in love with a girl with a cool name." "It's Taylor's middle name,”

“And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die.”

“Teresa, Teresa. Have we taught you nothing?" Raffy says in an irritated voice. "It's war. You go in and you hunt him down until he realises that he's made a mistake.”

“When he wins the bet, I tell Griggs that it will take me a lifetime to save up two trillion dollars and he tells me that he's only giving me seventy years.”

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

“There will be no 'one day,'" I yell. "Because holidays are over, Griggs, and you and I are never going to cross paths again. Not in the next ten days. Not ever! Have a fantastic life.[...]"Be careful what you wish for," he says with quiet menace, "because I'm about this close to telling you to get the fuck out of my life."I stare at him."What do you want from me?" he asks.What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him.More.”

“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 [...]”

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

“Go to hell," he said, but there was a desolate fear in his eyes and I couldn't look away."Been there. Trust me. It's so overrated.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I don't say anything and he casually leans against my desk, picking up the novel that's sitting there."It's bullshit," he tells me, flicking through it. "There's no such thing as Atticus Finch."I shrug. "It'd be nice if there was, though.”

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

“Never,' he tells me in a tone full of ice, 'underestimate who or what I care for.”

“Balthazar pledged to die defending his royal house of Lumuatere. Finnikin swore to be their protector and guide for as long as he lived. Lucian vowed he would be the light whom they traveled toward in times of need.”

“Sir Topher finally looked up. “Because any hope beyond that, my boy, would be too much. I feared we would drown in it.”"Then I choose to drown,” Finnikin said. “In hope. Rather than float into nothing.”

“Don't believe in God. Love the world just the way it is. ”

“Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.”

“I can't believe I said it out loud. The truth doesn't set you free, you know. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed and defenseless and red in the face and horrified and petrified and vulnerable. But free? I don't feel free. I feel like shit.”

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

“My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.I counted.It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of miles away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, 'What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?' and my father said, 'Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,' and that was the last thing he ever said.”

“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.”