Patrick Ness Quotes - Page 2

Who is to say that it is not everything else that is the dream?

It's like he's my family, except better, because I've chosen him.

Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.

He really is alone in whatever hell this is.Completely and utterly alone.'It isn't,' he thinks, as he trudges back toward his house, 'the most unfamiliar feeling in the world.

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

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.

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.

What happens to you when you get older? Do you just forget everything from before you turned eighteen? Do you make yourself forget?

THERE IT IS,’ my mother says, and what she means is that the dot we’ve been nearing for weeks, the one that’s been growing into a larger dot with two smaller dots circling it, has now become even larger than that, growing from a dot to a disc, shining back the light from its sun, until you can see the blue of its oceans, the green of its forests, the white of its polar caps, a circle of colour against the black beyond.

Everybody was hoping for something, talking about our new life to come and all that they hoped from it. Fresh air, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Real gravity, instead of the fake kind that broke every now and then (even though no one over fifteen would admit that it was actually really fun when it did). All the wide open spaces we’d have, all the new people we’d meet when we woke them up, ignoring completely what happened to the original settlers, super- confident that we were so much better equipped that nothing bad could possibly happen to us.All this hope, and here I was, right at the very edge of it, looking out into the darkness, the first to see it coming, the first to greet it when we found out what it really looked like.

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.

And yeah, I know most people would think it weird that two guy friends touch as much as we do, but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too. This is how we work. I hope you get to choose your family and I hope it means as much to you as mine does to me.

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.

If you ever want to see how small you are in the plan of God, just stand at the edge of an ocean.

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.

And what exactly do you think this proves?" he spits. "You've got power, but you don't know what to do wit

Real life is only ever just real life. Messy. What it means depends on how you look at it. The only thing you’ve got to do is find a way to live there.

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 to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?

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 insid

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!

We would do what we must. The world is big. Surely there is a space in it for one like you and one like me.

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!

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.

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.

We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we'd go crazy.

HELP!”I race to the square, crossing it, looking all around, listening out-..It’s empty.Viola’s breathing heavy in my arms .And Haven is empty.I reach the middle of the square.I don’t see nor hear a soul.I spin around again.“HELP!” I cry.But there’s no one.Haven’s completely empty.There ain’t hope here after all.

And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.Aaron’s Noise roars up in red and black.The current takes us on.“I’m sorry!” I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can’t barely breathe. “I’m sorry, Manch

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

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.

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

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 toge

There is a brightness on her face and she keeps urging me on with tilts of her head and smiles and 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 to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?

Pity is an insult. Kindness is a miracle.

Did it matter? George thought perhaps it did, and not in terms of finding truth or of any hope of discovering what really happened at any given moment. There were as many truths - overlapping, stewed together - as there were tellers. The truth mattered less than story's life. A story forgotten died. A story remembered not only lived, but grew.

Just remember, please, most of that stuff is in the past. It isn't the story I want to tell. At all.You needed to know it, but for the rest of this, I'm choosing my own story.Because if you can't do that, you might as well just give up.

But this, all this, isn't the story I'm trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people's stories and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you're still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that's what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on, and we're the stories we're living now.Aren't we?

I don't want to die. I want to live. I want to live long enough so I can really live.

Mikey," she says, but not like she's about to say anything more, just like she's identifying me, making a place for me here that's mine to exist in. I want her so much, my heart feels heavy, like I'm grieving. Is this what they meant about that stomach feeling? They didn't say it felt this sad.

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

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.

I couldn't stand the waiting anymore. I couldn't stand how alone it made me feel."And a part of you wished it would just end, said the monster, even if it meant losing her.And the nightmare began. The nightmare that always ended with -"I let her go," Conor choked out. "I could have held on but I let her go."And that, the monster said, is the truth."I didn't mean it, though!" Conor said, his voice rising. "I didn't mean to let her go! And now it's for real! Now she's going to die and it's my fault!"And that, the monster said, is not the truth at all.

Not everyone has to be the chosen one. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great from them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people probably. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyways.

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.

Blame is a human concept, one of its blackest and most selfish and self-binding.

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.

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?

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.

Belief is half of healing.

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?

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

And I know I’ve lost.Everything is lost.Everything is over.“As the newly appointed President of this fair planet of ours,” the Mayor says, holding out his hands as if to show me the world for the first time,” let me be the very first to welcome you to its new capital city.”“Todd?” Viola whispers, her eyes closed.I hold her tightly to me.“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “I’m so sorry.”We’ve run right into a trap.We’ve run right off the end of the world.“Welcome,” says the Mayor,” to the New Prentisstown.

Blame is something that is shared and denied in equal measures.

The future of fiction? he said. Maybe, she said. Will it have room for, you know, love & stuff? he said. Always, she said. OK then, he said.

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

And she says, “Then let’s just take the effing road and get ourselves to Hav

But I don't care what you think, not about these things anyway. If you don't think they're real or important or you think that we'll all grow out of this nonsense, well, that's not really my business. I can't tell you what's real for you. But in return, you can't say what's real for me either. I get to choose. Not you.

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

We stay watching the fire, which probably is just a fire, but we watch it together. Me and my friends. And there'll be a tomorrow, of course there will, when it all begins again, but right now is almost a kind of loop for me, something to feel on the inside of, but this time it's good. It's a loop with my friends that would even be a pretty damn good forever.

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