Patrick Ness Quotes

American-British novelist and children's writer

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Patrick Ness FRSL (born 17 October 1971) is an American-British author, journalist, lecturer, and screenwriter. Born in the United States, Ness moved to London and holds dual citizenship. He is best known for his books for young adults, including the Chaos Walking (2008–2010) trilogy and A Monster Calls (2011). Ness won the annual Carnegie Medal in 2011 and in 2012, for Monsters of Men and A Monster Calls.
He is one of seven writers to win two Medals, and the second to win consecutively. He wrote the screenplay of the 2016 film adaptation of A Monster Calls, and was the creator and writer of the Doctor Who spin-off series Class.

Bio from: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Feelings don't try to kill you,even the painful ones. Anxiety is a feeling grown too large. A feeling grown aggressive and dangerous. You're responsible for its consequences, you're responsible for treating it

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-

The world has always been hungry, though it often does not know what it hungers for.

But when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too.

I feel like I'm at the bottom of a well. I feel like I'm way down this deep, deep hole and I'm looking up and all there is is this little dot of light and I have to shout at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me and even when I do, I say the wrong thing or they don't really listen or they're just humouring me.

When one falls we all fall.

I thought Gudmund being taken away was the worst thing could ever happen to me, but it wasn't. The worst was finding out he was never really all mine in the first place. And so, for a moment, for a terrible, unbelievably shitty afternoon in a shitty little town on the shitty, freezing coast of Washington, I had nothing. There wasn't anything more, and the one good thing that was mine wasn't mine after all.

The ability to make fire
at will. It allowed us light to see in the darkness, warmth
against the cold, a tool to cook our food.’ He gestured
vaguely in the direction of the Delta’s engines. ‘Fire is what
eventually led to travel across the black beyond, the ability to
start a new life on a New World.

"And still you make fun," Tomassz complains, "after I am saving your life. Again. So tell me please, your inntricate knowledge of Polish references. Yes, that would be most amusing. Long, long talk now about Polish language and the words Polish people use to feel in picturesque language."
"Where did you learn English? The 1950s?"

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

Not everything is black and white. In fact, almost nothing is.

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

I thought I had more. I thought Gudmund was my more. It didn't matter how crap everything else was. The stuff with Owen, The stuff with my parents, even later with the stuff at school. I could live with all of that, because I had him. He was mine and no one else's. We lived in this private world, that no one else knew about and no one else ever lived in.

People with really stiff morals are easier to tip over.

Midnight passes and I'm twenty-five days and a million years from becoming a man.