Quotes from Patrick Ness

No," I say firmly. "If you ever doubt anything here, if you ever not know what to think or who to trust, you trust Todd, okay? You remember that.

If you're too specific, people will purposely mishear you so they can be outraged about whatever thing that usually outrages them.

Something I chose to forget because it didn't fit in with how shit everything was.

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

I look at the knife- Resting in a puddle of water- Near the ledge by the pulpit behind Aaron- Where I dropped it- And I hear it calling to me- Take me, it says- Take me and use me, it says- Aaron hold open his arms. "Murder me," he says. "Become a man." Never let me go says the knife

What do you do when your dreams are about to come true?" she asks. "No one ever tells you. They tell you to chase them, but what happens when you actually catch one?" "You enjoy it. Do your best, try not to be a dick.

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

For there are devils in the deep, but worst are the ones we make.

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

For who needs devils when you have men?

Submit! Juliet's Joy screeches underneath him at no one in particular. "I've got to get a new horse," the Mayor mutters.

As incredible as it seemed, time kept moving forward for the rest of the world. The rest of the world that wasn't waiting.

Stories are the wildest things of all, the monster rumbled. Stories chase and bite and hunt. That's what teachers always say, Conor said. No one believes them either.

Time goes on, even when yer not looking.

A good idea always attracts other good ideas.

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.

Death is not the end.

How do you like them apples, you piece of shit?

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)]

Librarians are tour-guides for all of knowledge.

I think I can forgive a kind lie.

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.

Because humans are complicated beasts," the monster said.

You're as old as the land and you've never heard of sarcasm?" Conor asked. Oh, I have heard of it, the monster said, putting its huge branch hands on its hips. But people usually know better than to speak it to me.