Quotes from Patrick Ness

Seth," she says, "wherever you are, it's okay. You can come back from it. Whatever happened to you down there, whatever the world looks like now, that's not how it always looks. That's not how it's always going to look. There's more. There's always more. Whatever you see, wherever you are, we're still here with you. Me and Tommy.

Life does not have to go how you think it will," Tomasz says. "Not even when you are very sure what is going to happen.

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.

You won't," says the Mayor, smiling again. "Everyone 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.

The green things of this world are just wondrous, aren't they?" his mother went on. "We work so hard to get rid of them when sometimes they're the very thing that saves us.

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.

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

It's always darkest before the dawn, Todd." I look at him, baffled. "No, it ain't! What kinda stupid saying is that? It's always lightest before the dawn!

We're just as screwed up and brave and false and loyal and wrong and right as anyone else.

He wanted something, he realizes now. Wanted an answer other than the ones he'd been given. Wanted to find out this whole world had some purpose, some particular purpose. For him.

VIOLA Cuz she's here - She came - She came for me - And she calls my name - And I feel her strength coursing thru my Noise like a fire - And the Mayor staggers back like he's been punched in the face by a row of houses - "Ah, yes," he grunts, his hand to his head. "Your tower of strength has arrived." "Todd!" I hear her call again - And I take it and I use it - Cuz I can feel her there, riding to the end of the world to find me, to save me if I needed saving - Which I did -

If the world wants you, it's gonna keep on coming till it gets you. And who am I that can fix it? Who am I that can change this if the world wants it so badly? Who am I to stop the end of the world if it keeps on coming?

We can save the world," I say, trying to smile. "You and me.

you can eff off, too," I say, except I don't say eff, I say what 'eff' stands for.

Viola? Keep calling for me– And I'll keep searching for you– And I'll find you– You bet yer life on it– I'll find you– Keep calling for me, Viola– Cuz here I come.

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

But it's a tradition, as if that alone is reason enough. Slavery and buying your wife were traditions, too.

You always assume you're the least-wanted person there. The one everyone else could do without.

Many things that are true feel like a cheat.

If one of us falls, we all fall.

Because even the one you hate leaves an absence when they go.

There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one.

It was so much easier to be loved than to have to do any of the desperate work of loving.

That it's making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?