Patrick Ness Quotes

Being the best gives you nowhere to go but down. It also makes you a target, for if someone else wants to be the best, they have to beat you, don't they? ~ Patrick Ness

It's not that you should never love something so much that it can control you.
It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled.
It's not a weakness.
It's your best strength. ~ Patrick Ness

Or perhaps we should just ask Todd."
I pound the glass right at his face. He doesn't even flinch.
And then she says, "Todd would never tell you. Never."
And the Mayor just looks at me.
And he smiles

My stomach sinks, my heart drops, my head feels so light I feel like I'm going to drop right to the ground.
Oh, Viola-
Viola, please-
Forgive me.
"Captain Hammar," the Mayor says and Viola's plunged into the water again, unable to not scream out in fright as down she goes.
"NO!" I shout, pressing myself against the mirror.
But the Mayor ain't even looking at her.
He's looking right at me, as if he could see me even if I was behind a brick wall.
"STOP IT!" I shout as she's thrashing again-
And more-
And more-
"VIOLA!"
And I'm pounding even tho my hands are breaking-
And Mr. Hammar is grinning and holding her there-
"VIOLA!"
And her wrist are starting to bleed from where she's pulling-
"I'LL KILL YOU!"-
I'm shouting into the Mayor's face-
With all my Noise-
"I'LL KILL YOU!"-
And still holding her there-
"VIOLA! VIOLA!"-
But it's Davy-
Of all people-
It's Davy who stops it. ~ Patrick Ness

Know yourself and go in swinging, if it hurts when you hit, it might be real, too. ~ Patrick Ness

When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best. ~ Patrick Ness

And then a low and powerful sound rumbles thru the sky, like some giant, deep horn.
A sound God would make when he wanted yer attenshun. ~ Patrick Ness

The past always fails those who grasp at it. ~ Patrick Ness

Things change, but they stay the same. ~ Patrick Ness

You notice that he does not ask, Where am I?" says the Mayor's voice, moving out there, somewhere. "His first words are, Where is she? And his Noise says the same. Interesting. ~ Patrick Ness

Do you believe there's hope at the end?"
"No, no, I dont, but im still going, you coming with me? ~ Patrick Ness

You went up a girl and came down a woman. ~ Patrick Ness

Submit! Juliet's Joy screeches underneath him at no one in particular.
"I've got to get a new horse," the Mayor mutters. ~ Patrick Ness

I like writing for teenagers because they're not snobs. ~ Patrick Ness

And now it's time to hand the baton to you. Stories don't end with writer, however many started the race. So go. Run with it. Make trouble. ~ Patrick Ness

What a sad thing men are. Can't do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can't build something up without tearing it
down. ~ Patrick Ness

I was born into all that, all that mess, the over-crowded swamp and the over-crowded sematary and the not-crowded-enough town, so I don't remember nothing, don't remember a world without Noise. My pa died of sickness before I was born and then my ma died, of course, no surprises there. Ben and Cillian took me in, raised me. Ben says my ma was the last of the women but everyone says that about everyone's ma. Ben may not be lying, he believes it's true, but who knows? ~ Patrick Ness

The Mayor's wrong -
He's wrong forever and ever -
It's not that you should never love something so much it can control you.
It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled. ~ Patrick Ness

You said we all want there to be more than this! Well, there's always more than this. There's always something you don't know. ~ Patrick Ness

Maybe hearts don't ever stop breaking once broken. ~ Patrick Ness

You know that your truth, the one that you hide ... is the thing you are most afraid of. ~ Patrick Ness

The yew tree is the most important of all the healing trees, it said. It lives for thousands of years. Its berries, its bark, its leaves, its sap, its pulp, its wood, they all thrum and burn and twist with life. It can cure almost any ailment man suffers from, mixed and treated by the right apothecary. ~ Patrick Ness

He is sorry-
For everything-
For Prentisstown-
For Viola-
For Ben-
For every failure and every wrong-
For letting his pa down-
And he's looking up at me-
And he's begging me-
He's begging me-
Like I'm the only one who can forgive him-
Like it's only me who's got the power-
Todd?-
Please-
And all I can say is "Davy-"
And the fright and the terror in his Noise is too much-
It's too much-
And then it stops.
Davy slumps, eyes still open, eyes still staring back at me, eyes still asking (I swear) for me to forgive him.
And he lies there, still.
Davy Prentiss is dead. ~ Patrick Ness

He opens his voice, showing me other sunrises he has seen, where the fields turn golden and the Source and his one in particular stood up from their early morning labours to watch it rise, a memory as simple as that, yet covered in joy and loss and love and grief-
And hope. ~ Patrick Ness

I don't know how much time passes with us just lying there, just feeling that the other is really there, really true, really alive, feeling the safety of him, his weight against mine, the roughness of his fingers touching my face, his warmth and his smell and the dustiness of his clothes, and we barely speak ... ~ Patrick Ness

He survives, does our Todd. ~ Patrick Ness

I'm just a girl."
"It is tragic how well you have been taught to say that with sadness rather than triumph. ~ Patrick Ness

...these thoughts start coming. They come all uninvited, don't they? ~ Patrick Ness

The answer is that it does not matter what you think, the monster said, because your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day. ~ Patrick Ness

I live in England, so I take a lot of trains, and you can't really go anywhere without somebody talking on their mobile phone behind you, forcing you to listen to their conversation. With the Internet, with texting, with networking sites, there's already information everywhere. ~ Patrick Ness

The world is cynical and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that that's always the truth. ~ Patrick Ness

But you can't make war personal," I say, "or you'll never make the right decisions."
"And if you didn't make personal decisions, you wouldn't be a person. All war is personal somehow, isn't it? For somebody? Except it's usually hate."
"Lee - "
"I'm just saying how lucky he is to have someone love him so much they'd take on the whole world." His Noise is uncomfortable, wondering what I'm looking like, how I'm responding. "That's all I'm saying."
"He'd do it for me," I say quietly.
I'd do it for you too, Lee's Noise says.
And I know he would.
But those people who die because we do it, don't they have people who'd kill for them?
So who's right? ~ Patrick Ness

They open up the world. Because knowledge is useless if you don't know how to find it, if you don't even know where to begin to look. - on librarians ~ Patrick Ness

There came a point when Harry stopped trying to fight back, when the blows from the monster were too strong, too many, too fast, when he began begging the monster to stop. ~ Patrick Ness

A bully with charisma and top marks is still a bully. ~ Patrick Ness

You be as angry as you need to be," she said. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not your grandma, not your dad, no one. And if you need to break things, then by God, you break them good and hard. ~ Patrick Ness

I have had as many names as there are years to time itself! roared the monster. I am Herne the Hunter! I am Cernunnos! I am the eternal Green Man! ~ Patrick Ness

He could probably even guess what Harry would say next in that calm, amused voice of his that seemed to mimic every adult you never wanted to meet. ~ Patrick Ness

No one ever seems to wonder what happens if it turns out we hate living on a planet? What if the sky's too big? What if the air stinks? What if we go hungry?'
'And what if the air tastes of honey? What if there's so much food we all get too fat? What if the sky is so beautiful we don't get any work done because we're all looking at it too much? ~ Patrick Ness

People ask for what they need in different ways. Sometimes by not even asking for it at all. ~ Patrick Ness

He's a woman.
He's a grown woman
He's a old woman. ~ Patrick Ness

More real, more there, like it's just the most incredible thing in the world that we're both still alive and I feel my chest get all funny and tight and I think, Here she is, right here, my Viola, she came for me, she's here-
And I find myself thinking how I want to take her hand again and never let it go, to feel the skin of it, the warmth of it, hold it tight against my own hand ... ~ Patrick Ness

What else do men think about except sex and enemies? ~ Patrick Ness

You do not write your life with words ... You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do. ~ Patrick Ness

To allow someone, anyone, to suffer is the greatest sin there is. ~ Patrick Ness

I don't think so," the Mayor buzzes -
And my feet stop running -
But then I pick up one -
And then the other -
And I'm running for it again -
I hear the Mayor laugh behind me. "Well done," he says. ~ Patrick Ness

Then she said, with mock horror, "She's going to bring some of her old wigs, if you can believe it." She rubbed her bare head with her free hand. "I'll look like a zombie Margaret Thatcher. ~ Patrick Ness

The wind picks up a little more (Terribly sorry, I imagine it saying; apparently, the wind is British, wondering how it got all the way over here) ~ Patrick Ness

Despair was one thing, despair had a component of energy, despair grappled and fought, despair needed you alive to feel its pain, but sadness, sadness was something else altogether. Sadness was a slow vampire. Sadness reached in and uncorked you like a full tub. Sadness was the parasite that killed its host. ~ Patrick Ness

Schooling ain't life."
"Ain't it?" she says, her eyebrows raising in mock surprise. ~ Patrick Ness

If you set out to write an adjective novel, you're setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it. ~ Patrick Ness

Sometimes you need things rather than just thoughts. ~ Patrick Ness

He didn't want to go and look. But at the same time, a part of him wanted to look more than anything. ~ Patrick Ness

We've got now,' ( ... ) 'And I've got you. And that's all I want. ~ Patrick Ness

Your stomach isn't the boss of you,' Mel says evenly.
'Oh,' Jared says, realizing. 'Sorry-'
Mel shakes her head, brushing it off. 'Not what I meant. Your heart isn't the boss of you other. Thinks it is. Isn't. You can always choose. Always.'
'You can't choose not to feel,' Henna says.
'But you can choose how to act. ~ Patrick Ness

The justifications of men who kill should always be heard with skepticism, said the monster. ~ Patrick Ness

We are the choices we make. And have to make. We aren't anything else. ~ Patrick Ness

I began to feel that itch that every writer longs for: the itch to start getting words down, the itch to tell a story. ~ Patrick Ness

And that, the monster said, is not the truth at all. Conor ~ Patrick Ness

Why did the first settlers come?" Hildy asks me. "Why does anyone look for a new place to live?"
"Cuz the place yer a-leaving ain't worth staying for," Tam says. "Cuz the place yer a-leaving is so bad ye gotta leave. ~ Patrick Ness

There's her silence, loud as a roar, pulling at me like the greatest sadness ever, like I want to take it and press myself into it and just disappear forever down into nothing.
What a relief that would feel like right now. What a blessed relief. ~ Patrick Ness

And that would be the end. So many ends. ~ Patrick Ness

("I knew it," Conor grumbled. "These kinds of stories always have stupid princes falling in love." He started walking back to the house. "I thought this was going to be good.")
(With one swift movement, the monster grabbed Conor's ankles in a long, strong hand and flipped him upside down, holding him in mid-air so his T-shirt rucked up and his heartbeat thudded in his head.)
(As I was saying, said the monster.) ~ Patrick Ness

Funny how you can forget that every family isn't like yours. ~ Patrick Ness

Too much talking," I say. "Not enough running. ~ Patrick Ness

I just want the world to make sense now and then, is that so wrong? ~ Patrick Ness

But then there's her eyes and they look at you and don't brook no arguments, don't look like they ever doubt themselves, even when they should. Maybe they're the eyes of a giant after all. ~ Patrick Ness

There's so much wonder in the world. Don't let no one tell you otherwise. ~ Patrick Ness

We just keep on having to save each other", he says. "We ever gonna be even?"
"I hope not," I say ~ Patrick Ness

You love him," he says. Not an asking, just a fact.
"I do," I say. Also a fact. ~ Patrick Ness

The thing is, Todd, people don't really want freedom, no matter how much they might bleat on about it. ~ Patrick Ness

Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits. ~ Patrick Ness

I can read it.
I can read her.
Cuz she's thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She's wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma's. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she's taking the song of my pa and she's weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.
And it hurts her, but it's an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it's good, but it hurts.
She hurts.
I know all this.
I know it's true.
Cuz I can read her.
I can read her Noise even tho she ain't got none.
I know who she is.
I know Viola Eade. ~ Patrick Ness

Life equals running and when we stop running maybe that's how we'll know life is finally finished. ~ Patrick Ness

Son," his father said, leaning forward. "Stories don't always have happy endings." This stopped him. Because they didn't, did they? That's one thing the monster had definitely taught him. Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn't expect. His ~ Patrick Ness

The key is never sheer numbers. The key is the correct catalyst. A pebble can start a landslide and the boulders have no say in the matter as they tumble down the hill. ~ Patrick Ness

We take random events and we put them together in a pattern so we can comfort ourselves with a story, no matter how much it obviously isn't true. ~ Patrick Ness

So who are you then, Todd Hewitt?" he says. "What makes you so special?"
Now that, I think, is a very good asking. ~ Patrick Ness

Not one of them lifting a hand to save theirselves from what's coming, hoping if they're meek enough, if they're weak enough, then the monster won't eat 'em. ~ Patrick Ness

Now that I've seen her, I can't stop seeing her. ~ Patrick Ness

Assuming a thing ain't knowing a thing. ~ Patrick Ness

Who am I? I am the spine that the mountains hang upon! I am the tears that the rivers cry! I am the lungs that breathe the wind! I am the wolf that kills the stag, the hawk that kills the mouse, the spider that kills the fly! I am the stag, the mouse and the fly that are eaten! I am the snake of the world devouring its tail! I am everything untamed and untameable! ~ Patrick Ness

The sound when we crash is so loud it's almost impossible. ~ Patrick Ness

Honestly. Adults. How do they live in the world? (Or maybe that is how they live in the world.) ~ Patrick Ness

It's fun being paid to read stuff and air your opinion about it - pretty much a dream job for a writer. ~ Patrick Ness

Oh, it was real, all right," she says. "We lived it; we were there. If you go through something and put up with it even if you want to get away from it more than anything in the whole world, then it was definitely bloody real. ~ Patrick Ness

Bitches,' Mr. Hammar says from atop his horse.
'Your analysis' was not asked for, Seargeant,' says the Mayor. ~ Patrick Ness

I just stand there like a doofus wondering just what in the effing blazes is going on. ~ Patrick Ness

Raising his eyes to look directly into Linus's face was maybe the scariest thing he'd had to do all day long, but it was only the free-falling terror that always accompanied hope. ~ Patrick Ness

Everything's always ending. But everything's always beginning, too. ~ Patrick Ness

And there. The power of a word. The power of one word. That's where it all changes. ~ Patrick Ness

The house was quiet when he got inside. Why wouldn't it be?
He was alone. ~ Patrick Ness

Memory is stupid, ain't it? ~ Patrick Ness

Old world's mucky, violent, and crowded," Hildy says, wiping her face with a napkin, "a-splitting right into bits with people a-hating each other and a-killing each other, no one happy till everyone's miserable. ~ Patrick Ness

>He was greedy and rude and bitter, but he was still a healer. The parson, though, what was he? He was nothing. Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits. And here was a man who lived on belief, but who sacrificed it at the first challenge, right when he needed it most. He believed selfishly and fearfully. And it took the lives of his daughters. ~ Patrick Ness

There's a bunch od huge churchs clustered together, trying to blend in with all the family-themed restaurants, because salvation is as easy as chicken wings, I guess. ~ Patrick Ness

Simone! Are you all right? Simone!"
And a voice, grunting with pain, says, "Todd?"
And-
And it ain't Simone's voice.
The smoke starts to clear.
And it ain't Simone.
"You saved me, Todd," says the Mayor, lying there, bad burns all over his face and hands, his clothes smoking like a brush fire. "You saved my life."
And his eyes are full of wonder of it-
That in the rush of the explozhun the person I chose to save-
The one I chose without even thinking-
(without there even being time for him to control me-)
(no time for him to make me do it-)
Was the Mayor. ~ Patrick Ness

If the world wants you, it's gonna keep on coming till it gets you. And who am I that can fix it? Who am I that can change this if the world wants it so badly? Who am I to stop the end of the world if it keeps on coming? ~ Patrick Ness

They're just stupid berries. Woo-hoo, so scary. Oh, please, please, save me from the berries!"
The monster looked at him quizzically. "How strange", it said. "The words you say tell me you are scared of the berries, but your actions seem to suggest otherwise.
"You're as old as the land and you've never heard of sarcasm?" Conor asked. ~ Patrick Ness

Cuz how do you know yer alive if you don't hurt? ~ Patrick Ness

And it's a sad song, Todd, but it's also a promise. I'll never deceive you and I'll never leave you and I promise you this so you can one day promise it to others and know that it's true. ~ Patrick Ness