Patrick Ness Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If one of us falls, we all fall.
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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.
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I think the reason teenage fiction is so popular with adults is that adults hunger for narrative just as badly as teenagers do.
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It's fun being paid to read stuff and air your opinion about it - pretty much a dream job for a writer.
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Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits.
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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?
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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.
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A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes Monsters of Men.
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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.
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The justifications of men who kill should always be heard with skepticism, said the monster.
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Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.
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Sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You'd be surprised.
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No one wants to read an apologetic book.
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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.
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You went up a girl and came down a woman.
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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.
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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.
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You are keeping the possibility [of peace] open. No wise leader would do anything less.
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Because I'm not blind to how Harry works, you know," she said. "A bully with a charisma and top marks is still a bully." She sighed, annoyed. "He'll probably end up Prime Minister one day. God help us all.
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You're never more alive than in battle." "Never more dead after," I say.