Top 450 Patrick Ness Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “A story never ends at the end. There is always after.”

— Patrick Ness

52. “A thing worth learning is worth learning well.”

— Patrick Ness

53. “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 for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.”

— Patrick Ness

54. “I remember the ache I used to feel when she got too close, how it felt like grief, how it felt like a loss, like I was falling, falling into nothing, how it clenched me up and made me want to weep, made me actually weep.”

— Patrick Ness

55. “And too much informayshun can drive a man mad. Too much informayshun becomes just Noise. And it never, never stops.”

— Patrick Ness

56. “Death is not the end.”

— Patrick Ness

57. “Faith is belief without proof.”

— Patrick Ness

58. “And I know it – I know it in my heart – Right now – Todd Hewitt – There’s nothing we can’t do together -.”

— Patrick Ness

59. “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.”

— Patrick Ness

60. “Smart boys make useless men.”

— Patrick Ness

61. “You do not write your life with words, the monster said. You write it with actions.”

— Patrick Ness

62. “It does not matter what you think, your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day. Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. 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

63. “I don’t want to die. I want to live. I want to live long enough so I can really live.”

— Patrick Ness

64. “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.”

— Patrick Ness

65. “If a crowd can flinch, they flinch. More than a thousand men flinch under the fist of just one. I don’t see what the women do.”

— Patrick Ness

66. “Tread carefully, Marty. I mean it. The world has completely changed around you while you weren’t looking.”

— Patrick Ness

67. “And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.”

— Patrick Ness

68. “Do you not wonder sometimes, she showed now, sadly, if in some ways they are correct? That we are asking too much of the world?“No,” he said. “They’re the ones who are asking for too little.””

— Patrick Ness

69. “He heard the creaking and cracking of wood again, groaning like a living thing, like the hungry stomach of the world growling for a meal. Then.”

— Patrick Ness

70. “Shout for libraries. Shout for the young readers who use them.”

— Patrick Ness

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

71. “And then a low and powerful sound rumbles thru the sky, like some giant, deep horn. A sound God would make when he wanted yer attenshun.”

— Patrick Ness

72. “You got lost on your journey somewhere.” “That’s what everyone says who never bothered to go on a journey in the first place.”

— Patrick Ness

73. “Do we hate paradise so much we need to make sure it becomes a trash heap?”

— Patrick Ness

74. “Stories are wild creatures, the monster said. When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?”

— Patrick Ness

75. “His grandma burst into his mum’s hospital room ahead of him with a terrible question on her face. But there was a nurse inside who answered immediately. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re in time.”

— Patrick Ness

76. “And here was a man who lived on belief, but who sacrificed it at the first challenge, right when he needed it most.”

— Patrick Ness

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

77. “Ow, Todd? Ow?”

— Patrick Ness

78. “Except I didn’t say eff.”

— Patrick Ness

79. “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.”

— Patrick Ness

80. “Poo, Todd! Poo!”

— Patrick Ness

81. “I want a campfire box.”

— Patrick Ness

82. “The best liar is the one who believes her lie is true.”

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

84. “Battle not with monsters lest you become a monster and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you. Friedrich Nietzsche.”

— Patrick Ness

85. “Belief is half of all healing.”

— Patrick Ness

86. “When luck ain’t with you, it’s against you.”

— Patrick Ness

87. “Is it because hope is scary?’ my father asked. I looked back at him, startled. ‘You think so, too?’ He smiled, full of love. ‘Hope is terrifying, Viola,’ he said. ‘No one wants to admit it, but it is.”

— Patrick Ness

88. “And it hurts her, but it’s an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it’s good, but it hurts.”

— Patrick Ness

89. “Everything that’s happened has brought me here, to this place, with this knife in my hand, and something worth saving.”

— Patrick Ness

90. “Life equals running and when we stop running maybe that’s how we’ll know life is finally finished.”

— Patrick Ness

91. “Guessing a thing ain’t knowing a thing.”

— Patrick Ness

92. “And it’s a sad song, Todd, but it’s also a promise. I’ll never deceive you and I’ll never leave you and I promise you this so you can one day promise it to others and know that it’s true.”

— Patrick Ness

93. “No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors. You accept things that would appall you at any other time because life has temporarily lost all meaning.”

— Patrick Ness

94. “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

95. “And if no one sees you, are you really there at all?”

— Patrick Ness

96. “Because humans are complicated beasts,” the monster said.”

— Patrick Ness

97. “Sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You’d be surprised.”

— Patrick Ness

98. “Men do monstrous things but if you call a man a monster you have absolved yourself of blame. You don’t have to think that you might ever do these things. I don’t think that’s true.”

— Patrick Ness

99. “Know yourself and go in swinging, if it hurts when you hit, it might be real, too.”

— Patrick Ness

Featured in: Real Quotes

100. “Conor was no longer invisible. They all saw him now. But he was further away than ever.”

— Patrick Ness