Patrick Ness Quotes

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
It's not a weakness-
It's your best strength-
...
I know it in my heart-
Right now-
Todd Hewitt-
There's nothing we can't do together-
And we're gonna win-

"I don't do pity kisses," she says. "I don't do pity anything. Pity is patronizing. Pity is an assumption of superiority."
"That sounds like your dad."
"It is my dad, but he's right. He says kindness is better. Kindness is the most important thing of all. Pity is an insult. Kindness is a miracle."

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.

The only place you belong is the place you can never go back. And so yer always alone, forever and always.

The purpose of a volcano is to die,' she says. 'Is this not what you strive for?'
'The purpose of a volcano is to die, my lady,' says the volcano, 'but as angrily as possible.

People see stories everywhere,” Regine says. “That’s what my father used to say. 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.” She glances back at Seth. “We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we’d go crazy.

"Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour? How can an apothecary be evil-tempered but right-thinking? How can a parson be wrong-thinking but good-hearted? How can invisible men make themselves more lonely by being seen?

"I don't know," Connor shrugged, exhausted. "Your stories never made any sense to me."

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. You wanted her to go at the same time you were desperate for me to save her. Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both."

"Because humans are complicated beasts," the monster said.

Miss Kwan said, putting her voice into its “kindly” mode, which was only slightly less scary than full-on shouting.

Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.

People break, I guess. Everyone.

"Who cares even if I didn't?!" Conor shouted back. "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 seems to suggest otherwise.

Conor wasn’t stupid. When they’d had the “little talk” the next day, he knew what his mum had done and why she had done it. But that didn’t take away from how much fun that night had been. How hard they’d laughed. How anything had seemed possible. How anything good could have happened to them right then and there and they wouldn’t have been surprised.

People say they want freedom, but what they really want is freedom from worry.

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.