Patrick Ness quotes:

I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers.

Being a leader is making the people you love hate you a little more each day.

The best characters in books are always the difficult ones, and why would you want to fall in love with someone difficult? The ones I'd fall in love with are the ones I'd definitely keep out of a book.

Folk tales and myths, they've lasted for a reason. We tell them over and over because we keep finding truths in them, and we keep finding life in them.

I'll find you- Keep calling for me, Viola- Cuz here I come.

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.

How you leave the reader is so important - not the climax; I call it the 'exit feeling'.

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

I got tired of books where the boy is a bit thick and the girl's very clever. Why does it have to such an opposition? Why can't they be like the girls and boys that I know personally, who are equally funny and equally cross? Who get things equally wrong and are equally brave? And make the same mistakes?

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.

I'm a long distance runner, and I get my best ideas when I'm out running. It also helps that I can't write it down immediately - if you hold onto an idea, other things will stick on it.

Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.

War makes monsters out of men.

Didn't you finish your chemistry in school?" "You closed the school and burnt all the books." "Ah, so I did.

If you ever see a war," she says, not looking up from her clipboard, "you'll learn that war only destroys. No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors.

Anything that anybody wants to give me is great! I've had folk songs, heavy metal songs, jewellery... I would never call anything any fan gives me weird, as it's how people express what they like about the books, what it means to them, and that's a wonderful thing.

Hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare in the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?

In some ways. I always feel between worlds, between cultures, and I think that's not necessarily a bad place for a writer to be. Writers are kind of on the fringe anyway, observing, writing things down. I'm still mostly American, but it's a nice tension.

War is like a monster, he says, almost to himself. War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows. He's looking at me now. And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.

Happiness is precious, and so I prefer to keep mine private. In a world where everyone shares everything, I can think of a lot of happy moments, but they're mine.

If I sit down to write a young-adult novel, then I'm going to write either to the punch-pulling expectation of what I can't do, or I'm going to go the other way and think about what can I sneak in to be 'down with the kids' - which would be excruciating.

And it feels like, finally.

You went up a girl and came down a woman.

Limitations can be hugely creative and hugely inspiring - so long as they are the ones you choose for yourself. I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette, but if I do, then within that, I can be creative.

Online is such a brilliant, brilliant way to connect with young readers - even if they just want to tweet, 'Hey, I read your book!' - that, absolutely, I connect with that. But I also treat writing as solitary and keep it to myself as long as I can.

I meet blind and partially-sighted young readers all the time, and it's a shock that so few books are available to them.

This is what war does. Right here, in my hands. This is war.

His Noise saying, No, no, not now, not NOW-And then he says, Viola?I'm here, Todd, I say, my voice breaking, shouting with desperation. I'm here!And he says Voila? again-Asking it-Asking like he's not sure I'm there-And then his Noise falls completely silent-And he stops struggling-And looking right into my eyes-He dies.My Todd dies.

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.

I think the reason teenage fiction is so popular with adults is that adults hunger for narrative just as badly as teenagers do.

...and I have this stupid little thought that Aaron didn't survive the croc attack after all, that he died but he's so pissed off at me that dying didn't stop him from coming here to kill me anyway.

So we forgive each other?" The crooked smile climbs up one more time. "Again?" And I look right into his eyes, right into him as far as I can see, because I want him to hear me, I want him to hear me with everything I mean and feel and say. "Always," I say to him. "Every time.

Because I'm not blind to how Harry works, you know," she said. "A bully with a charisma and top marks is still a bully." She sighed, annoyed. "He'll probably end up Prime Minister one day. God help us all.

In this world of numbness and information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.

Conor held tightly onto his mother. And by doing so, he could finally let her go.

Librarians are tour-guides for all of knowledge.

Shout for libraries. Shout for the young readers who use them.

War makes monsters of men, you once said to me Todd. Well, so does too much knowledge. Too much knowledge of your fellow man, too much knowledge of his weakness, his pathetic greed and vanity, and how laughably easy it is to control him.

We are the choices we make.

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.

And then his noise falls completely silent-And he stops struggling-And looking right into my eyes-He dies.My Todd dies.

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

Never trust a politician, Todd. They have no fixed center, so you can never believe them.

So who are you then, Todd Hewitt? he saysWhat makes you so special?Now that, I think, is a very good asking.

And I know it - I know it in my heart - Right now - Todd Hewitt - There's nothing we can't do together -

TODD! I shout again -And he looks at me -And I hear my name in his Noise -And I know it -I know it in my heart -Right now -Todd Hewitt -There's nothing we can't do together -And we're gonna win -

You won't, says the Mayor, smiling againEveryone knows you aren't a killer, Todd.He pushes Viola forward again -She calls out from the pain of it -Viola, I think -Viola -I grit my teeth and raise the rifle -I cock it -And I say what's true -I would kill to save her, I say.

And right on cue, Viola yells, TODD!And I hit him with everything I got -Every bit of her behind me -Every piece of anger and frustrayshun and nothingness -Every moment I didn't see her -Every moment I worried -Everything -Every little tiny thing I know about her -I send it right into the center of him - VIOLA

I'll do it, Todd, I whisperI'll come with you.And he doesn't say anything, just squeezes my hand harder and brings it up to his face like he wants to breathe me in.

I was a hugely unchaperoned reader, and I would wander into my local public library and there sat the world, waiting for me to look at it, to find out about it, to discover who I might be inside it.[Patrick Ness slams library cuts (The Guardian, 23 June 2011)]

I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, too, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare into the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?

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.

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.

It's not how we fall. It's how we get back up again.

We share out craziness, our neuroses, our little bit of screwed-up-ness that comes from our family. We share it. And it feels like love.

Yeah, my parents are crappy, but you hurt either of my sisters and I will spend my life finding ways to destroy you.

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.

I wanted so badly for there to be more. I ached for there to be more than my crappy little life.' He shakes his head. 'And there was more. I just couldn't see it.

People see stories everywhere...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...We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we'd go crazy.

Her accent's funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown's. Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they're swooping down on them from above, pushing them into shape, telling them what to say. In Prentisstown, everyone talks like they're sneaking up on their words, ready to club them from behind.

Stories are important...They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.

Life ain't fair. It ain't. Not never. It's pointless and stupid and there's only suffering and pain and people who want to hurt you. You can't love nothing or no one cuz it'll all be taken away or ruined and you'll be left alone and constantly having to fight, constantly having to run just to stay alive.

I don't purposely push the boundaries... I think if you pay attention to a story, it will have exactly as much 'difficult material' as it needs, and nobody will complain about it because you've earnt it.

We run down the right fork, Manchee at our heels, the night and a dusty road stretching out in front of us, an army and a disaster behind us, me and Viola, running side by side.

Noise ain't Truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there's a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don't watch out.

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.

You are keeping the possibility [of peace] open. No wise leader would do anything less

No one wants to read an apologetic book.

A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative. That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident that the book will do its job.

Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that's working, I can just let it go and do all the stuff that I love - 'Trojan horse' it. There are so many great YA heroines, and that's fantastic, but what about the emotionally complex boy out there? That's who I tend to write about.

For me, when I start a novel, I only have a general sense of what I am going to do - usually three or four big scenes or something to which I can really respond emotionally.

We have lost the idea that something can be secret because it is valuable, not because it's shameful. If you share everything with everybody, what have you got for yourself? I tweet and I blog, but I save a lot for myself. Not because I am ashamed.

"No," he says, taking us both in. "No, no, no. You've come farther than most people on this planet will in their lifetimes. You've overcome obstacles and dangers and things that should've killed you. You've outrun an army and a madman and deadly illness and seen things most people will never see. How do you think you could have possibly come this far if you didn't have hope?"

... a good idea always attracts other good ideas.

...and changing for the better doesn't mean that he's ever going to reach good...

...That it's making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?" ~pg 423

...the lesson of forever and ever is that knowing a man's mind ain't knowing the man.

A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative.

A knife is only as good as the one who wields it.

A man is capable of thought. A crowd is not.

A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes Monsters of Men.

A thing worth learning is worth learning well.

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.

And here was a man who lived on belief, but who sacrificed it at the first challenge, right when he needed it most

And I look at her sitting there and she looks across the river and we wait as the dawn fully arrives, each of us knowing. Each of us knowing the other.

And if one day,' she said, really crying now, 'you look back and you feel bad for being so angry, if you feel bad for being so angry at me that you couldn't even speak to me, then you have to know, Conor, you have to that is was okay. It was okay. That I knew. I know, okay? I know everything you need to tell me without you having to say it out loud.

And it hurts her, but it's an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it's good, but it hurts.

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.

And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.

And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside me. And i fall back into it.

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.

And too much informayshun can drive a man mad. Too much informayshun becomes just Noise. And it never, never stops.

As destruction goes, the monster said behind him, this is all remarkably pitiful.

As long as I hold it as long as I use it, the knife lives, lives in order to take life, but it has to be commanded, it has to have me to tell it to kill, and it wants to, it wants to plunge and thrust and cut and stab and gouge, but I have to want it to as well, my will has to join with its will. I'm the one who allows it and I'm the one responsible.

As to how you'll help me," he says. "Well, we have met the Answer, have we not?" He turns back to look at us, his eyes glinting. "It's time for them to meet the Ask.

Because he KNEW he was doing wrong. He felt the PAIN of his actions'-- 'But he did not amen them,' shows the Sky. 'The rest are worth as much as their pack animals,' I show, 'but worst is the one who knows better and does NOTHING.

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

But,' he thinks, 'it's possible to die before you die.

But, somehow, Wilf knows. Somehow, Wilf always knows.

Cept for Ben, who I can't describe much further without seeming soft and stupid and like a boy, so I won't, just to say that I never knew my pa, but if you woke up one day and had a choice of picking one from a selecshun, if someone said, here, then, boy, pick who you want, then Ben wouldn't be the worst choice you could make that morning.

Conor was no longer invisible. They all saw him now. But he was further away than ever.

Do we hate paradise so much we need to make sure it becomes a trash heap?

Do you not wonder sometimes, she showed now, sadly, if in some ways they are correct? That we are asking too much of the world?"No," he said. "They're the ones who are asking for too little."

Dogs don't got the problems of people. Dogs can be happy any old time.

Doing what's right should be easy. It shouldn't be just another big mess like everything else.

Don't deceive me. Never leave me.

Don't think you haven't lived long enough to have a story to tell.

even when peaceful cooperation is the obvious thing, the only thing that will keep any of us alive- There are still people who won't make that choice

Everything that's happened has brought me here, to this place, with this knife in my hand, and something worth saving.

Except I didn't say eff

Faith with proof is no faith at all.

For me it is really important to have a story with blood in the veins, there are bad tempers and good tempers.

Francia don't look too convinced. I never seen arms so crossed.

Girls are small and polite and smiley. They wear dresses and their hair is long and it's pulled into shapes behind their heads or on either side.

Guessing a thing ain't knowing a thing.

He was still alive. Which was the worst thing that could have happened.

Here I am. Here we are. Here we go. Here is all that matters.

Here is the boy, drowning.