Top 450 Patrick Ness Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “A thing worth learning is worth learning well.”

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

53. “And there. The power of a word. The power of one word. That’s where it all changes.”

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

56. “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

57. “Smart boys make useless men.”

— Patrick Ness

58. “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

59. “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

60. “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

61. “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

62. “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

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

— Patrick Ness

64. “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

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

— Patrick Ness

66. “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

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

— Patrick Ness

68. “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

69. “Except I didn’t say eff.”

— Patrick Ness

70. “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

71. “Poo, Todd! Poo!”

— Patrick Ness

72. “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

73. “Ow, Todd? Ow?”

— 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. “I want a campfire box.”

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

77. “Belief is half of all healing.”

— Patrick Ness

78. “Death is not the end.”

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

83. “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

84. “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

85. “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

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

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

— Patrick Ness

91. “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.”

— Patrick Ness

92. “Everyone here is someone’s daughter,” she says quietly. “Every soldier out there is someone’s son. The only crime, the only crime is to take a life. There is nothing else.” “And that’s why you don’t fight,” I say. She turns to me sharply. “To live is to fight,” she snaps. “To preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.”

— Patrick Ness

93. “What a sad thing men are. Can’t do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can’t build something up without tearing it down.”

— Patrick Ness

94. “In this world of numbness and information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”

— Patrick Ness

95. “There’s so much wonder in the world. Don’t let no one tell you otherwise.”

— Patrick Ness

96. “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

97. “I am everything untamed and untameable! It brought Conor up close to its eye. I am this wild earth, come for you, Conor O’Malley.”

— Patrick Ness

98. “Ah, well, then you’ve never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it’s beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains.”

— Patrick Ness

99. “The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.”

— Patrick Ness

100. “There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere inbetween. Conor shook his head. “That’s a terrible story. And a cheat.” It is a true story, the monster said. Many things that are true feel like a cheat.”

— Patrick Ness