Patrick Ness

“Now that I've seen her, I can't stop seeing her.”

“The only place you belong is the place you can never go back to.”

“Never love something so much it can be used to control you.”

“I have two maxims that I believe, dear girl. One, if you can control yourself, you can control others. Two, if you can control information, you can control others.”

“You tell a man the truth about himself and, well, they find they have trouble accepting it.”

“The thing is, Todd, people don't really want freedom, no matter how much they might bleat on about it.”

“- Не разбирам. Кой е добрият в тази история?- Не е задължително в една история да има добър. Както не е задължително да има лош. Всъщност повечето хора са нещо средно - нито добри, нито лоши”

“Do you believe there's hope at the end?""No, no, I dont, but im still going, you coming with me?”

“The future of fiction? he said. Maybe, she said. Will it have room for, you know, love & stuff? he said. Always, she said. OK then, he said.”

“A man is capable of thought. A crowd is not.”

“Sometimes the rumour of an army is just as effective as the army itself.”

“He knew it would come, and soon, maybe even this 12:07. The moment she would slip from his grasp, no matter how tightly he held on.”

“If you speak the truth, the monster whispered in his ear, you will be able to face whatever comes.”

“The answer is that it does not matter what you think, the monster said, because your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day.”

“And a part of you wished it would just end, said the monster, even if it meant losing her.”

“He was still alive.Which was the worst thing that could have happened.”

“I did not come to heal her, the monster said. I came to heal you.”

“You are the one who called me, Conor O’Malley, it said, looking at him seriously. You are the one with the answers to these questions.”

“But there are harder things than being invisible, it said.”

“There came a point when Harry stopped trying to fight back, when the blows from the monster were too strong, too many, too fast, when he began begging the monster to stop.”

“Conor O’Malley who wants to be punished,” Harry said, still stepping back, his eyes on Conor’s. “Conor O’Malley who needs to be punished. And why is that, Conor O’Malley? What secrets do you hide that are so terrible?”

“The green things of this world are just wondrous, aren’t they?” his mother went on. “We work so hard to get rid of them when sometimes they’re the very thing that saves us.”

“Now that, said the monster, is how destruction is properly done.”

“The Apothecary was surprised. “You would give up everything you believed in?”“If it would save my daughters,” the parson said. “I’d give up everything.”

“Along the edge of this green lived a man. His name is not important, as no one ever used it. The villagers only ever called him the Apothecary.”

“Almost like being in the nightmare, that same feverish blur of the world slipping off its axis, but this time he was the one in control, this time he was the nightmare.”

“There was his father, looking totally different but exactly the same.“Hey, son,” his dad said, his voice bending in that weird way that America had started to shape it.”

“The whole room was like a museum of how people lived in olden times.”

“There was a glass-fronted cabinet opposite, filled with plates on display stands and teacups with so many curlicues it was a wonder you could drink from them without cutting your lips.”

“His grandma wouldn’t be here when his father arrived. Which suited everyone.”

“Miss Kwan said, putting her voice into its “kindly” mode, which was only slightly less scary than full-on shouting.”

“He blamed Lily, because who else was there?”

“It is not her you need saving from, it said.”

“It is a true story, the monster said. Many things that are true feel like a cheat.”

“Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.”

“What did he say?” Conor asked.He said enough to bring me walking, the monster said. I know injustice when I see it.”

“I knew it,” Conor grumbled. “These kinds of stories always have stupid princes falling in love.” He started walking back to the house. “I thought this was going to be good.”With one swift movement, the monster grabbed Conor’s ankles in a long, strong hand and flipped him upside down, holding him in mid-air so his T-shirt rucked up and his heartbeat thudded in his head.As I was saying, said the monster.”

“This is all sounding pretty fairy tale-ish,” Conor said, suspiciously.You would not say that if you heard the screams of a man killed by a spear, said the monster. Or his cries of terror as he was torn to pieces by wolves. Now be quiet.”

“This was a kingdom.(“What?” Conor said, looking around his backyard. “Here?”)(The monster cocked its head at him curiously. You have not heard of it?)(“Not a kingdom around here, no,” Conor said. “We don’t even have a McDonald’s.”)”

“Even though it walked and talked, even though it was bigger than his house and could swallow him in one bite, the monster was still, at the end of the day, just a yew tree.”

“You’re as old as the land and you’ve never heard of sarcasm?” Conor asked.Oh, I have heard of it, the monster said, putting its huge branch hands on its hips. But people usually know better than to speak it to me.”

“They’re just stupid berries. Woo-hoo, so scary. Oh, please, please, save me from the berries!”

“Are you being a good boy for your mum?” Conor’s grandma pinched Conor’s cheeks so hard he swore she was going to draw blood.“He’s been very good, Ma,” Conor’s mother said, winking at him from behind his grandma, her favorite blue scarf tied around her head. “So there’s no need to inflict quite so much pain.”

“You know that is not true, the monster said. You know that your truth, the one that you hide, Conor O’Malley, is the thing you are most afraid of.”

“It is not what I want from you, Conor O’Malley, it said. It is what you want from me.“I don’t want anything from you,” Conor said.Not yet, said the monster. But you will.”

“No one knew.Then Lily’s mum knew, of course.Then Lily knew.And then everyone knew. Everyone. Which changed the whole world in a single day.And he was never going to forgive her for that.”

“He’d known Lily forever. Or for as long as he could remember, which was basically the same thing.”

“Conor wasn’t stupid. When they’d had the “little talk” the next day, he knew what his mum had done and why she had done it. But that didn’t take away from how much fun that night had been. How hard they’d laughed. How anything had seemed possible. How anything good could have happened to them right then and there and they wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“This voice had a quality to it, a monstrous quality, wild and untamed.”

“Stories don’t end with the writers, however many started the race.”