Saving Francesca Quotes

“I can't believe I said it out loud. The truth doesn't set you free, you know. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed and defenseless and red in the face and horrified and petrified and vulnerable. But free? I don't feel free. I feel like shit.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Comfort zones are overrated. They make you lazy.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Do you think people have noticed that I'm around?”
“I notice when you're not. Does that count?”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“It's a weird smile, but it reaches his eyes and I bottle it. And I put it in my ammo pack that's kept right next to my soul and Justine's spirit and Siobhan's hope and Tara's passions. Because if I'm going to wake up one morning and not be able to get out of bed, I'm going to need everything I've got to fight this disease that could be sleeping inside of me.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Do something that scares you everyday.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“People with lost personalities will suffer a great deal more than those with lost virginities.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Just ask how I'm feeling, I want to say. Just ask and I may tell you.

But no one does.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“I used to tell your mother she looked like Sophia Lauren." He looks at me, frowning, and then it registers.
"Oh God, some guy's using that line on you, isn't he?"
"Not just 'some guy'." I tell him. "The guy.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary."

I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun.

A nothing. A nobody. A no one.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“I just stare at him. I want to ask him a thousand questions, but I can tell he doesn't want to be asked.
"We make weird friends," I say instead.
"I've never been into the f-word with people."
"I'm privileged, then? Why me?"
He thinks for a moment and shrugs again.
"You're the realest person I've ever known."
"Is that good or bad?"
"It's fucking awful. There's not much room for bullshit, and you know how I thrive on it."
We laugh for a moment and begin walking again.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, "We're pregnant." I want to go around the neighborhood saying, "We're depressed." If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“You go shake your foundations, Will. I think it's about time I saved myself.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Memory is a funny thing. It tricks you into believing that you've forgotten important moments, and then when you're raking your brain for a bit of information that might make sense of something else, it taps you on the head and says, "Remember when you told me to put that memory in the green rubbish bin? Well, I didn't, I put it in the black recycling tub, and it's coming your way again.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“I'm sorry," he says, "for that time I kissed you at that party and for that time at the wedding and more than anything for the thousand times that I wanted to and didn't have the guts to.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“His voice is deep and gravelly. I once heard one of the girls say that he had the voice of a sex god, but because I've never really heard what a sex god sounds like, I can't verify that.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“When I grow up, I'm going to be my mother.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Your friends are at the house.'

I sit up, straight. 'Who'?

'I don't know. Weird people. The Sullivan girl, whose father got the Gosford police to pick you up.'

'Siobhan?'

'And another one who's making cups of tea for everyone, and keeping the boy who's telling Luca fart jokes away from the girl who says he's "the last bastion of patriarchal poor taste".'

'Justine, Thomas and Tara.'

And the drug fiend, Jimmy, is keeping Mia calm and the Trombal boy's rung about ten times. I don't like his manner on the phone.'

'You won't like any guy's manner on the phone.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Oh God, Frankie, I breathe in rhythm with that man. You think that's not my flesh and blood after all these years?”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“We approach the house and I wave at Jimmy.
"And if he thinks he's eating with us, he's got another thing coming," my dad says.
Jimmy approaches us and takes the shopping bags from me, looking inside them.
"Lamb roast. Am I invited?”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“He bursts out laughing. It's short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction's already mine.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“For a moment I can't help thinking how decent he is - that there's some hope for him beyond the obnoxious image he displays. Maybe deep down he is a sensitive guy, who sees us as real people with real issues. I want to say something nice. Some kind of thanks. I stand there, rehearsing it in my mind.
"Oh my God," he says, "did you see that girl's tits?"
Maybe not today.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“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

“I stand up, sure of one thing and one thing only. That my father will come and get me. He won't give me a lecture, he won't try to teach me a lesson. He won't ask a thousand questions or ask me to apologize. He'll just come and get me.
"Just tell me where you are.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“So between you and me," I tell Justine on the phone that night, "we're either bitchy or stupid."
"Oh God," she moans. "Everyone thinks I'm an idiot."
"Thanks!”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“So I ring Justine Kalinsky and I say, "It's Francesca Spinelli," and she says, "Francesca, you've got to stop using last names. How are you doing?" and I say "I feel like shit", and I don't know how it happens, but by eight o'clock that night I'm lying next to her on the couch with Siobhan and Tara and we're eating junk food and watching a Keanu movie. And I want to stay on that couch for the rest of my life.”
― 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

“It's like you have a plan and someone comes along and makes you want to change it all, but you still like your first plan, no matter how fantastic the second one makes you feel.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“And secondly, losing your virginity doesn't make you a slut. I slept with your father when I was your age. . . '

'Mia,' my father roared from the other room.

'What? So we're going to lie to her now,?' she shouted back.

He walked in. 'What if your mother finds out? Or my mother?'

'Robert, it was twenty years ago. I don't think there's much they can do.'

He looked at me, pointing a finger. 'No sex for you.' He used the Soup Nazi's accent from Seinfeld.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“He takes out a cigarette and offers one to me.
"I try not to indulge. It's a filthy habit," I tell him.
"I love that word filthy. I love the way you force it out of your mouth like it's some kind of vermin you want to get rid of."
"You've had vermin in your mouth?"
"You're mean in that way, you know. You don't let anyone get away with pathetic analogies.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca