The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, #2)

by Patrick Ness

Without pain, it feels almost like I don’t have a body at all, almost like I’m a ghost, sitting in a chair, blinded and eternal. Like I’m dead already. Cuz how do you know yer alive if you don’t hurt?

“Whoa, girl,” I whisper again cuz riding a horse is turning out to be powerfully uncomfortable on yer private bits.

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

“you’ll learn that war only destroys. No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors. You accept things that would appal you at any other time because life has temporarily lost all meaning.” “War makes monsters of men,”

“A thing worth learning is worth learning well.”

All horses are a little bit crazy.

But it’s every word, crammed into yer head all at once, and the whole world is shouting at you that YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING and it rips away every word of yer own, like pulling yer hair out at the roots and taking skin with it– A flash of words and I’m nothing– I’m nothing– YER NOTHING–

“To live is to fight,” she snaps. “To preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.”

“That’s my war,” she says. “That’s the war I’m fighting.”

Horses ain’t pets and they’re half-crazy all the time but I’ve been learning if you treat ’em right, they get to know you.

Better the devil you know. I wonder why the only choice is twixt two devils, tho.

He’s shaking his head slowly. “I’ve done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things–” “We all fall, you said.” I’m gripping him hard now. “We all fall but that’s not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again.”

“There’s always a choice,” Viola says by my side.

It’s not that you should never love something so much 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–