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I'm a long distance runner, and I get my best ideas when I'm out running. It also helps that I can't write it down immediately - if you hold onto an idea, other things will stick on it.
Patrick Ness -
If one of us falls, we all fall.
Patrick Ness
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A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes Monsters of Men.
Patrick Ness -
Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits.
Patrick Ness -
Ideals, my girl,” she says. “Always easier to believe in than live.” “But if you don't at least try to live them,” Bradley says, “then there's no point in living at all.
Patrick Ness -
It's really important to me not to be a snob about age division or about genre or whatever. The story needs to be what the story needs to be.
Patrick Ness -
You went up a girl and came down a woman.
Patrick Ness -
Conor held tightly onto his mother. And by doing so, he could finally let her go.
Patrick Ness
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Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that's working, I can just let it go and do all the stuff that I love - 'Trojan horse' it. There are so many great YA heroines, and that's fantastic, but what about the emotionally complex boy out there? That's who I tend to write about.
Patrick Ness -
You notice that he does not ask, Where am I?" says the Mayor's voice, moving out there, somewhere. "His first words are, Where is she? And his Noise says the same. Interesting.
Patrick Ness -
Francia don’t look too convinced. I never seen arms so crossed.
Patrick Ness -
I try to avoid describing one interpretation of my books. Of course I have an opinion. I have things I want to say, but I don't ever want to limit anybody, to have them say, 'Oh, he said this, so that's what it's about.' I'm happy people bring their own stuff to it.
Patrick Ness -
I got tired of books where the boy is a bit thick and the girl's very clever. Why does it have to such an opposition? Why can't they be like the girls and boys that I know personally, who are equally funny and equally cross? Who get things equally wrong and are equally brave? And make the same mistakes?
Patrick Ness -
It's fun being paid to read stuff and air your opinion about it - pretty much a dream job for a writer.
Patrick Ness
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For me, when I start a novel, I only have a general sense of what I am going to do - usually three or four big scenes or something to which I can really respond emotionally.
Patrick Ness -
Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.
Patrick Ness -
I don't purposely push the boundaries... I think if you pay attention to a story, it will have exactly as much 'difficult material' as it needs, and nobody will complain about it because you've earnt it.
Patrick Ness -
You're never more alive than in battle." "Never more dead after," I say.
Patrick Ness -
The best characters in books are always the difficult ones, and why would you want to fall in love with someone difficult? The ones I'd fall in love with are the ones I'd definitely keep out of a book.
Patrick Ness -
Forget market or publishers or whatever. Just write with fire and joy, and in my own experience, those are the stories of mine people have wanted to read.
Patrick Ness
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Online is such a brilliant, brilliant way to connect with young readers - even if they just want to tweet, 'Hey, I read your book!' - that, absolutely, I connect with that. But I also treat writing as solitary and keep it to myself as long as I can.
Patrick Ness -
The justifications of men who kill should always be heard with skepticism, said the monster.
Patrick Ness -
You are keeping the possibility [of peace] open. No wise leader would do anything less.
Patrick Ness -
Yer the only friend I got, pigpiss... Ain't that the biggest tragedy you ever heard?
Patrick Ness