Natalie > Natalie's Quotes

“We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies.”
― John Marsden, The Dead of Night

“All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“I live in the light,
But carry my dark with me.”
― John Marsden, The Dead of Night

“People just sticking names on places, so that no one could see those places properly any more. Every time they looked at them or thought about them the the first thing they saw was a huge big sign saying 'Housing Commission' or 'private school' or 'church' or 'mosque' or 'synagogue'. They stopped looking once they saw those signs.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“There are some things that once you've lost, you never get back. Innocence is one. Love is another. I guess childhood is a third.”
― John Marsden

“Why did people call it Hell?" I wondered. [...] No place was Hell, no place could be Hell. It's the people calling it Hell, that's the only thing that made it so. People just sticking names on places, so that no one could see those places properly anymore. [...]

No, Hell wasn't anything to do with place, Hell was all to do with people. Maybe Hell was people.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“At that age you think boys have as much personality as coat hangers and, you don't notice their looks.
Then you grow up.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“My pen.’ Funny, I wrote that without noticing. ‘The torch’, ‘the paper’, but ‘my pen’. That shows what writing means to me, I guess. My pen is a pipe from my heart to the paper. It’s about the most important thing I own.”
― John Marsden, The Dead of Night

“Let no stranger intrude here, no invader trespass. This was ours, and this we would defend.”
― John Marsden, The Dead of Night

“The Bible just said ‘Thou shalt not kill’, then told hundreds of stories of people killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“We believed we were safe. That was the big fantasy.”
― John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began

“Silence, always my fortress, sometimes my prison”
― John Marsden

“You can never stay angry too long in the bush though. At least, that's what I think. It's not that it's soothing or restful, because it's not. What it does for me is get inside my body, inside my blood, and take me over. I don't know that I can describe it any better than that. It takes me over and I become part of it and it becomes part of me and I'm not very important, or at least no more important than a tree or a rock or a spider abseiling down a long thread of cobweb. As I wandered around, on that hot afternoon, I didn't notice anything too amazing or beautiful or mindbogglingly spectacular. I can't actually remember noticing anything out of the ordinary: just the grey-green rocks and the olive-green leaves and the reddish soil with its teeming ants. The tattered ribbons of paperbark, the crackly dry cicada shell, the smooth furrow left in the dust by a passing snake. That's all there ever is really, most of the time. No rainforest with tropical butterflies, no palm trees or Californian redwoods, no leopards or iguanas or panda bears.

Just the bush.”
― John Marsden, Darkness, Be My Friend

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”
― Garth Nix, Sabriel

“Choosers will be beggars if the begging's not their choosing.”
― Garth Nix, Lirael

“Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I'm doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it.”
― Garth Nix

“Please," said Lirael..."I think I would like to work in this Library."
"The Library," repeated Sanar, looking troubled. "That can be dangerous to a girl of fourteen. Or a woman of forty, for that matter.”
― Garth Nix, Lirael

“What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies

“Nature didn't need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.”
― Scott Westerfeld, The Uglies Trilogy

“Sometimes the facts in my head get bored and decide to take a walk in my mouth. Frequently this is a bad thing.”
― Scott Westerfeld, So Yesterday

“I guess sometimes you have to lie to find the truth.”
― Scott Westerfield, Extras

“The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies

“Never bored on a hoverboard.”
― Scott Westerfeld

“Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.”
― Robert Jordan

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”
― Robert Jordan

“Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it?”
― Robert Jordan

“Read and find out.”
― Robert Jordan

“Life itself was hard enough without monosynaptic sociopaths preying on folks.”
― Michael A. Stackpole, Star Wars: I, Jedi

“Let's get started. Who's first?"
"His name is Kettch, and he's an Ewok."
Wedge came upright. "No."
"Oh, yes. Determined to fight. You should hear him say, 'Yub, yub.' He makes it a battle cry."
"Wes, assuming he could be educated up to Alliance fighter-pilot standards, an Ewok couldn't even reach an X-wing's controls."
"He wears arm and leg extensions, prosthetics built for him by a sympathetic medical droid. And he's anxious to go, Commander."
"Please tell me you're kidding."
"Of course I'm kidding."
(...) "I'm going to get you, Janson."
"Yub, yub, Commander.”
― Michael Stackpole

“I don't have to blow up everything I see... I just like to.”
― Aaron Alston, Wraith Squadron