Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Melina Marchetta

Image
People aren’t interested in the truth, Dafar. They’re interested in what keeps them safe. They’re interested in being looked after. They’re interested in a tale being spun... Mighty men have moments of great despair that common people do not want to know about.
Melina Marchetta
Image
Our spirit is mightier than the filth of our memories.
Melina Marchetta
Image
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
Image
You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?
Melina Marchetta
Image
I'm sick and tired of you people living interstate and overseas from people you want to be with. You're ruining my life! All of you!
Melina Marchetta
Image
Play me something that makes me feel This soul inside me is made of steel. Brain is breathing, but heart’s not beating And, babe, I need you to make things real. Walk inside me without silence, Kill the past and change the tense. Empty gnawing and the ache is soaring Take me places that make more sense.
Melina Marchetta
Image
Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.
Melina Marchetta
Image
There were events that stuck in my mind. One, for example, was the case of the missing palace seal at the beginning of winter.’ ‘Oh the poor animal,’ she cried out, ‘they’re such beautiful creatures.’ ‘I’m speaking of the royal seal placed on correspondence, as you would know,’ he said.
Melina Marchetta
Image
Maybe memories should be left the way they are.
Melina Marchetta
Image
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
Image
I live on the Jellicoe Road. Where trees make canopies over-head and where you can sit at the top of them and see forever.
Melina Marchetta
Image
If something happened to me, whose face will be on the front page of the paper begging for me? Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?
Melina Marchetta
Image
All I need to understand is the unwritten law of warriors, he said firmly. And women and children are never sent to do our work without our protection. He pointed to the trees, emphatically. That's the language I share with them.
Melina Marchetta
Image
She misses him more now than when he was away
Melina Marchetta
Image
The idea that God works in mysterious ways is rubbish. There’s nothing mysterious about his ways. They’re premeditated and slightly conniving, and they place you in an impossible situation.
Melina Marchetta
Image
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
Image
Best way to find the weakness of the enemy is to understand their ways.
Melina Marchetta
Image
Men don't rape women because their women are ugly, cousin Jostien said, but there was a protest at his words. That's what my fa said! He says that inside their hearts and spirits they are nothing but little men who need to feel powerful.
Melina Marchetta
Image
Do something that scares you everyday.
Melina Marchetta
Image
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