John Marsden Quotes

Quotes about:

• I'm a person of the mountains and the open paddocks and the big empty sky, that's me, and I knew if I spent too long away from all that I'd die; I don't know what of, I just knew I'd die.

  John Marsden

  Climbing, Sky, Long

  John Marsden (1999). “A Killing Frost”, Laurel Leaf

  49 Copy quote

• We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies.

  John Marsden

  Butterfly, Complaining, Caterpillars

  37 Copy quote

• Don't treat people as you think they are, treat them as you think they are capable of becoming.

  John Marsden

  Thinking, People, Becoming

  John Marsden (2010). “While I Live: The Ellie Chronicles 1: The Ellie Chronicles”, p.63, Pan Australia

  4 Copy quote

• Life's about a hell of a lot more than being happy. It's about feeling the full range of stuff: happiness, sadness, anger, grief, love, hate. If you try to shut one of those off, you shut them all off. I don't want to be happy. I know I won't live happily ever after. I want more than that, something richer. I want to go right up close to the beauty and the ugliness. I want to see it all, know it all, understand it all. The richness and the powerty, the joy and the cruelty, the sweetness and the sadness. That's the best way I can honour my friends who died.

  John Marsden

  Hate, Grief, Sadness

  13 Copy quote

• My survival was up to me. I had nothing and I had no one. What I did have, I told myself, was my mind, my imagination, my memory, my feelings, my spirit. These were important and powerful things.

  John Marsden

  Memories, Powerful, Imagination

  16 Copy quote

• Writing is not a job or activity. Nor do I sit at a desk writing for inspiration to strike. Writing is like a different kind of existence. In my life, for some of the time, I am in an alternative world, which I enter through day-dreaming or imagination. That world seems as real to me as the more tangible one of relationships and work, cars and taxes. I don't know that they're much different from each other.

  John Marsden

  Dream, Jobs, Real

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Love Is, Childhood, Innocence

  John Marsden (1998). “Checkers”, p.30, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Live as though you’ll die tomorrow, but farm as though you’ll live forever.

  John Marsden

  Motivational, Positive, Happiness

  John Marsden (2000). “Burning for Revenge”, p.21, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• We’ve got to stick together, that’s all I know. We all drive each other crazy at times, but I don’t want to end up here alone, like the Hermit. Then this really would be Hell. Humans do such terrible things to each other that sometimes my brain tells me they must be evil. But my heart still isn’t convinced.
  I just hope we can survive.

  John Marsden

  Crazy, Heart, Evil

  John Marsden (1995). “Tomorrow, When the War Began”, p.287, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• I live in the light, But carry my dark with me.

  John Marsden

  Dark, Light

  9 Copy quote

• Some people wake up drowsy. Some people wake up energized. I wake up dead.

  John Marsden

  Sleep, People, Wake Up

  7 Copy quote

• Sometimes I think I'd rather be frightened than bored. At least when you're frightened you know you're alive.

  John Marsden

  Thinking, Bored, Alive

  John Marsden (1998). “A Killing Frost”, p.12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  3 Copy quote

• Life's harder, the deeper you feel things.

  John Marsden

  Harder, Deeper, Feels

  3 Copy quote

• It all began when... they're funny, those words. Everyone uses them, without thinking what they mean. When does anything begin? With everyone it begins when you're born. Or before that, when your parents got married. Or before that, when your parents were born. Or when your ancestors colonised the place. Or when humans came squishing out of the mud and slime, dropped off their flippers and fins, and started to walk. But all the same, all that aside, for what's happened to us there was quite a definite beginning

  John Marsden

  Mean, Thinking, Parent

  7 Copy quote

• So, that was Nature's way. The mosquito felt pain and panic but the dragonfly knew nothing of cruelty. Humans would call it evil, the big dragonfly destroying the mosquito and ignoring the little insects suffering. Yet humans hated mosquitoes too, calling them vicious and bloodthirsty. All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.

  John Marsden

  Pain, Evil, Suffering

  John Marsden (2011). “The Tomorrow Series: Tomorrow When the War Began”, p.153, Hachette UK

  37 Copy quote

• So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no stories, they wouldn't be human, wouldn't exist. And if my stories had been different I wouldn't be the person I am.

  John Marsden

  People, Different, Stories

  John Marsden (2001). “The Night is for Hunting”, p.201, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Growing Up, Boys, Thinking

  John Marsden (1995). “Tomorrow, When the War Began”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Hero, People, Stories

  John Marsden (1995). “Tomorrow, When the War Began”, p.219, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Never cry over something that can't cry over you.

  John Marsden

  Over You, Cry

  "South of Darkness". Book by John Marsden, 2014.

  3 Copy quote

• What's the Future? It's a blank sheet of paper, and we draw lines on it, but sometimes our hand is held, and the lines we draw aren't the lines we wanted.

  John Marsden

  Hands, Paper, Lines

  John Marsden (1997). “The Dead of Night”, p.92, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

  John Marsden

  Time Spent

  John Marsden (2010). “While I Live: The Ellie Chronicles 1: The Ellie Chronicles”, p.165, Pan Australia

  6 Copy quote

• A few people would suffer, but a lot of people would be better off.' 'It's just not right,' said Kevin stubbornly. 'Maybe not. But neither's your way of looking at it. There doesn't have to be a right side and a wrong side. both sides can be right, or both sides can be wrong.

  John Marsden

  People, Suffering, Would Be

  John Marsden (1996). “Tomorrow, When the War Began”, Laurel Leaf

  5 Copy quote

• The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.

  John Marsden

  Friendship, Inspiring Love, Tests

  John Marsden (2010). “Circle of Flight: The Ellie Chronicles 3: The Ellie Chronicles”, p.182, Pan Australia

  28 Copy quote

• All these words, words like 'evil' and 'vicious', they meant nothing to Nature. Yes, evil was a human invention.

  John Marsden

  Evil, Mosquitoes, Dragonflies

  John Marsden (1995). “Tomorrow, When the War Began”, p.246, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

• I knew I was breaking about a dozen laws but I guess I had different attitudes to stuff like that since the war. Laws were for the stupid the immature the irresponsible. The inflexible and the narrow-minded. The prejudiced. The obsessive. The lazy and careless and selfish and spoilt. The violent.

  John Marsden

  Attitude, Selfish, War

  John Marsden (2010). “While I Live: The Ellie Chronicles 1: The Ellie Chronicles”, p.60, Pan Australia

  3 Copy quote

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