Mel > Mel's Quotes

“Stories are important, the monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“As if Riley and Amelia were lions, and we were a menage a trois of lively, prancing deer.”
― Jaclyn Moriarty, The Ghosts of Ashbury High

“I'm really disappointed about how you've turned out," shouted Mum like Beth was a slightly burnt biscuit.”
― Karen Foxlee, The Anatomy of Wings

“And so I think I got married because I thought that a ring would lock that love in forever, because it's very scary when it is just your feelings holding you together”
― Craig Silvey, 10 Short Stories You Must Read in 2010

“Every time he looked at me I felt like I'd touched my tongue to the tip of a battery. In art class I'd watch him lean back and listen and I was nothing but zing and tingle. After a while, the tingle turned to electricity, and when he asked me out my whole body amped to a level where technically I should have been dead. I had nothing in common with a sheddy like him, but a girl doesn't think straight when she's that close to electrocution.”
― Cath Crowley, Graffiti Moon

“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

“You know what they say about mistakes though,' she said, all breathy and half-lipsy. 'It's the only way you ever learn anything.' And she leant forward and kissed him. Right there, in the middle of the bar. Right there, in the middle of his lips.”
― Gabrielle Williams, Beatle Meets Destiny

“The tree seemed very sad to be involved in such a thing and it hung its dark head over them.”
― Karen Foxlee, The Anatomy of Wings

“...a choice had to be made when your husband said something unkind. Specifically: be cruel, be strong, or sulk. 'Be cruel' by saying an unkind thing back. 'Be strong' by choosing not to mind. But to do this, you have to use up a piece of your love. You have to shave off enough of the love to forgive. After a while, the piece might grow back, but sometimes not. And if you shave off all the soft curves, you'll be left with a sharp-edged love. 'Sulk' by sulking. Sulking is simply delaying the choice to be cruel or strong.”
― Jaclyn Moriarty, The Spell Book of Listen Taylor

“...women are elephants and watch the way you say that in front of them because they'll think you're calling them fat and there's no coming back from that moment. But they hoard. They say they don't, but they do. We think that if something's not spoken about again, it goes away. It doesn't. Nothing goes away just like that...”
― Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son

“Have you ever seen The Last of the Mohicans?"
"I love it."
"Really?" I'm over the moon. We share a movie. Finally, we're on the same planet.
"Don't you love the part where he says, 'Stay alive. I will find you'?" I ask.
"I love that massacre scene," he says, like an excited little boy, "where they're walking down that path in the middle of nowhere and they're surrounded by the woods and you know the Indians are going to attack and it's so tense."
Things that make you go hmmm.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“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, Saving Francesca

“The Irish people didn't get on that well with each other either. They hated the Catholics, was the main issue, as I see. You can't blame them for that. If I understand correctly, Catholics do not believe in contraception. So, you know, sex is not relaxing.”
― Jaclyn Moriarty, The Ghosts of Ashbury High

“Everyone tiptoed backward and forward past the door and looked at her sadness like it was an exhibition. A jewel in its case.”
― Karen Foxlee, The Anatomy of Wings

“If you expect me to believe that a lawyer wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream, I must be dafter than I look.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.”
― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“All i want is a dress with puffy sleaves”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“exacerbate, v.

I believe your exact words were: "You're getting too emotional.”
― David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary

“Your work has been described as touching the soul of the reader. That's the way I felt. Feel. Honestly. You've touched my soul. I'm sorry if I sound like a middle-aged librarian at a book-autographing session.”
― W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe

“SVU, CSI, CSI: NY. These shows, they're all about things being done to females and children. If they were full of thing being done to say, Asians or black people, well, that probably wouldn't be allowed - not as many shows all the time. But females and children are okay.”
― Kirsty Eagar, Raw Blue

“To say you have no choice is to relieve yourself of responsibility.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“Men do monstrous things but if you call a man a monster you have absolved yourself of blame. You don't have to think that you might ever do these things. I don't think that's true”
― Patrick Ness

“For a long time he watched her. When she was lost to sight, he was almost a little moved. But that's life, thought death.”
― Wolf Erlbruch, Ente, Tod und Tulpe

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”
― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious...”
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“We look at each other with shy relief. It's the look two odd socks give when they recognise each other in the wild.”
― Fiona Wood, Six Impossible Things

“Every letter was a love letter. Of course, as love letters went, this one could have been better. It was not very promising, for instance, that Madeleine claimed not to want to see him for the next half-century.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot