Patrick Ness Quotes

Upset isn't the same as the world falling apart.

But that's the risk, isn't it? 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?

"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.

Her love for me made me as tall as the mountains

Ah, well, then you've never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it's beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains.

"The mistake of every young person is to think they're the only ones who see darkness and hardship in the world."
...
"The mistake of every adult, though, is to think darkness and hardship aren't important to young people because we'll grow out of it. Who cares if we will? Life is happening to us now, just like it's happening to you."

If you speak the truth, the monster whispered in his ear, you will be able to face whatever comes.

Close enough so I can see the smile, a smile I know full well, a smile that clubs, a smile that beats, a smile that dominates.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the monster began, this country had become a place of industry. Factories grew on the landscape like weeds. Trees fell, fields were up-ended, rivers blackened. The sky choked on smoke and ash, and the people did, too, spending their days coughing and itching, their eyes turned forever toward the ground. Villages grew into town, towns into cities. And people began to live on the earth rather than within it.

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.

No,' Ben says, 'but I believe it. I believe it for you. And that's why it's hope.

Finally, we come to the real thing, the thing that makes men men, the thing were born for, Todd. War.

"Yes", Kumiko said, seriously. "Exactly that. The extraordinary happens all the time. So much, we can't take it. Life and happiness and heartache and love. If we couldn't put it in story - "
"And explain it -"
"No!" she said, suddenly sharp. "Not explain. Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. The story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying that this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, story is not an explanation, it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us." She sagged a little, as if exhausted by this speech. "As it surely, surely would."