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

- John Marsden

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 do…

- John Marsden

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

- John Marsden

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

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 spi…

- John Marsden

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

- John Marsden

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

- John Marsden

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 …

- John Marsden

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…

- John Marsden