Patrick Ness > Quotes

“We are the choices we make.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“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.”
― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

“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.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Here's what I think," I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my noise like whispers of truth. "I think maybe everybody falls," I say. "I think maybe we all do. And I don't think that's the asking."
I pull on her arms gently to make sure she's listening.
"I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“It's not how we fall. It's how we get back up again.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“But a knife ain't just a thing, is it? It's a choice, it's something you do. A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don't. A knife takes a decision out of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again. ”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Stories are wild creatures, the monster said. When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“To say you have no choice is to relieve yourself of responsibility.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say.
About anything.
"Need a poo, Todd."
"Shutup, Manchee."
"Poo. Poo, Todd."
"I said shut it.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“In this world of numbness and information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”
― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

“Stories are important...They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“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.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“Faith with proof is no faith at all.”
― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

“War makes monsters out of men.”
― Patrick Ness

“His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still-
See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and-
"Oh, God," he says, looking away suddenly. "Viola, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
But I just put my hand to the back of his neck-
And he says, "Viola-?"
And I pull myself towards him-
And I kiss him.
And it feels like, finally.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“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?”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“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.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“I'll find you-

Keep calling for me, Viola-

Cuz here I come.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

“Stories are the wildest things of all. Stories chase and bite and hunt.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“You can't say everything, so you don't say nothing.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“How do you know yer alive if you don't hurt?”
― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

“Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour? How can an apothecary be evil-tempered but right-thinking? How can a parson be wrong-thinking but good-hearted? How can invisible men make themselves more lonely by being seen?

"I don't know," Connor shrugged, exhausted. "Your stories never made any sense to me."

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. You wanted her to go at the same time you were desperate for me to save her. 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.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“To live is to fight, to preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.”
― Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

“I wish I had a hundred years, she said, very quietly. A hundred years I could give to you.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“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.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

“You starting to feel hope yet?" Viola asks, her voice curious.
"No," I say, fuddling my noise. "You?"
Her eyebrows are up but she shakes her head. "No, No."
"But we're going anyway."
"Oh, yeah," Viola says. "Hell or high water."
"It'll probably be both," I say.”
― Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Choices may be unbelievably hard but they're never impossible. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that's not how a person with integrity acts.”
― Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men