"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 (Jellicoe Road)

"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."
— Melina Marchetta (Saving Francesca)

"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."
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)

"Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?"
— Melina Marchetta (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 (On The Jellicoe Road)

"Don't believe in God. Love the world just the way it is. "
— Melina Marchetta (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 (On The Jellicoe Road)

"From this distance everything is so bloody perfect."
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)

"Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known."
— Melina Marchetta (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 (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 (On The Jellicoe Road)

"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.""
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)

"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. "
— Melina Marchetta (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 revalation,' 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 (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 (On The Jellicoe Road)

"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."
— Melina Marchetta (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 (On The Jellicoe Road)

"How can you just forget a person completely until the moment you see his face again?"
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)

"We spoke about our dreams and how we always felt safe in them, no matter how bad everthing else seemed. He told me it was one of the best days of his life and then he took out his gun. A .22 rifle. And he leaned forward and whispered, "Forgive me, Taylor Markham." Before I could ask how he knew my name and what I was to forgive him for he said, "Take care of my little girl."
And then he told me to close my eyes.
And I've been frightened to do just that ever since."
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)

"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."
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)

"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?'"
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)

"I recognise Santangelo's dad, who saves police brutality for when he gets to his son."
— Melina Marchetta

"How can you just forget a person completely until the moment you see his face again?"
— Melina Marchetta (On The Jellicoe Road)