Small Italian Family

Looking for Alibrandi – Quotes

• Family…sense of not belonging…of having a predestined future

This might be where I come from, but do I really belong here? That’s the past, and you can’t let the past run your life.

Nonna says we’re lucky to be included. Because we’re cursed we don’t really belong.

I’m not gonna be trapped by them…I’m going places

Give me a few years and I’ll be running things, and it won’t be a small Italian family.

I’m going to be the first Alibrandi woman to have a say in how her life turns out.

• School life…difference in social class

At St. Martha’s its all about money, prestige, and what your father does for a living.

I’m surrounded by girls whose father’s treat them like princesses…they think they have everything, and you know what? They do.

• John Barton…first love…thoughts on suicide/grieving…rejection of the ideal world

I can’t believe I’ve got John Barton’s soul and he’s got mine…I wonder if he’s as scared as I am about what we wrote.

For the rest of my life I want to know what they’ll do with those sheets…maybe they’ll burn them…or maybe they’ll scrub and scrub that blood away so they can sleep on them for the rest of their lives.

Do you think I didn’t get depressed and feel like killing myself? How dare he…because everyone knew who his father was, and no one ever told their kids they weren’t allowed to play at his place.

Why can’t anyone see…If John Barton couldn’t be alright, no one’s going to be alright.

I always wanted to be part of his world, but I don’t belong there. God he didn’t even belong there. I don’t belong anywhere and I hate it.

• Jacob Coote…initial feelings…clash of culture

I’ve never had to go out with an ethnic girl before.

You’re so lucky. You live without culture or religion. You just have to live by the law. - Josie
That’s bullshit. I hate the way you simplify my life like that. – Jacob

• Michael Andretti…discovery of a