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According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I'll thank him for the advice.

Melina Marchetta

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Melina Marchetta
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: March 25
Screenwriter
Writer
Sydney
NSW
Carmelina Marchetta
Writing
Advice
Twists
Nature
Pathetic
Character
Preservation
Firsts
Forgive
Human
Thank
Humans
Forgiving
Oliver
Self
According
Dickens
First
Rule
Twist

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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.
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Left alone with the dial tone...excuse me, operator, why is no one listening?
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But you're almost eighteen. You're old enough. Everyone else is doing it. And next year someone is going to say to someone else 'but you're only sixteen, everyone else is doing it' Or one day someone will tell your daughter that she's only thirteen and everyone else is doing it. I don't want to do it because everyone else is doing it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty,” they’d joke. Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.
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Even five minutes of your time can make someone's day.
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Because photos are testimony that someone did live. A reminder of past we may have loved or hated. A piece of our lives.
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She's tired and leans her head on his shoulder, which is the resting place for all their heads, but when Justine and Siobhan and Francesca use his body so shamelessly he doesn't feel the need to turn his head and press his mouth against their hair.
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What do you want from me? he asks. What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him. More.
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I heard your song the moment we were born. And years later, it dragged me back from the lake of the half-dead when all I wanted to do was die. Each time someone tried to kill me, it sang its tune and gave me hope.
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Everyone had told him to be strong for her, but Finnikin didn't know how to be strong for himself.
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My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.
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There's not much you need to know about the world. Except how to use a sword and trust very few.
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Whatever is now covered up will be uncovered and every secret will be made known.
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And at that moment Jude thought something that he would never forgive himself for. He wished that he had never met any of them.
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What are you doing? she asked, trying to raise herself. First, I thought I'd show you what a pity it would be if they cut off my wicked tongue.
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