Patrick Ness

“Being a leader is making the people you love hate you a little more each day.”

“You're never more alive than in battle.""Never more dead after," I say.”

“Cuz that's it -That's the nasty, nasty secret of war -When yer winning -When yer winning, it's effing thrilling -”

“There it is again, right in my head, I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME -But this time it's different -There's a lightness -A breath-stealing feeling -A weightlessness to it that makes my stomach rise -"I give you a gift," he says, his voice floating thru my head like a cloud on fire. "The same gift I've given to my captains. Use it. Use it to defeat me. I dare you."I look into his eyes, into the blackness of them, the blackness that swallows me whole -I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.And that's all I can hear in the whole world.”

“More real, more there, like it's just the most incredible thing in the world that we're both still alive and I feel my chest get all funny and tight and I think, Here she is, right here, my Viola, she came for me, she's here-And I find myself thinking how I want to take her hand again and never let it go, to feel the skin of it, the warmth of it, hold it tight against my own hand...”

“No," I say firmly. "If you ever doubt anything here, if you ever not know what to think or who to trust, you trust Todd, okay? You remember that.”

“The sound when we crash is so loud it's almost impossible.”

“And right on cue, Viola yells, " TODD! "And I hit him with everything I got -Every bit of her behind me -Every piece of anger and frustrayshun and nothingness -Every moment I didn't see her -Every moment I worried -Everything -Every little tiny thing I know about her -I send it right into the center of him - VIOLA ”

“And what exactly do you think this proves?" he spits. "You've got power, but you don't know what to do with it." VIOLA "Looks like I'm doing fine," I say.”

“TODD!" I shout again -And he looks at me -And I hear my name in his Noise -And I know it -I know it in my heart -Right now -Todd Hewitt -There's nothing we can't do together -And we're gonna win -”

“The Mayor's wrong -He's wrong forever and ever -It's not that you should never love something so much it can control you.It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled.”

“And I feel her against me -And I think Viola -I think VIOLA! -I think VIOLA!!!! ”

“You won't," says the Mayor, smiling again. "Everyone knows you aren't a killer, Todd."He pushes Viola forward again -She calls out from the pain of it -Viola, I think -Viola -I grit my teeth and raise the rifle -I cock it -And I say what's true -"I would kill to save her," I say.”

“So we forgive each other?" The crooked smile climbs up one more time. "Again?"And I look right into his eyes, right into him as far as I can see, because I want him to hear me, I want him to hear me with everything I mean and feel and say."Always," I say to him. "Every time.”

“The lesson of forever and ever is that knowing a man's mind ain't knowing the man.”

“Things change, but they stay the same.”

“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.”

“Never trust a politician, Todd. They have no fixed center, so you can never believe them.”

“Just cuz yer going there and I'm staying here," I say. "It don't mean we're parting.""No," she says and I know she understands. "No, it certainly doesn't.""I ain't parting from you again," I say, still looking at our fingers. "Not even in my head.”

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

“You love him," he says. Not an asking, just a fact."I do," I say. Also a fact.”

“Me and Todd? Together against the Mayor?" She smiles. "He doesn't stand a chance.”

“We can save the world," I say, trying to smile. "You and me.”

“I do what I have to do," I say.I do what I have to do to save him.I do what I have to do to save Todd.”

“But, somehow, Wilf knows. Somehow, Wilf always knows.”

“I was just trying to stay alive, looking for ways to find you, hoping you hadn't left me behind.""Never," I say. "Not never."He looks back up at me. "I'd never leave you neither.""You promise?""Cross my heart, hope to die," he says, grinning shyly."I promise, too," I say and I smile at him. "I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt, not never again.”

“I don't know how much time passes with us just lying there, just feeling that the other is really there, really true, really alive, feeling the safety of him, his weight against mine, the roughness of his fingers touching my face, his warmth and his smell and the dustiness of his clothes, and we barely speak...”

“TODD!" I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I'm grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I'll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back - "I thought you were dead," he's saying, his breath on my neck. "I thought you were dead.""Todd," I say and I'm crying and the only thing I can say is his name. "Todd.”

“If you ever see a war," she says, not looking up from her clipboard, "you'll learn that war only destroys. No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors.”

“Dogs don't got the problems of people.Dogs can be happy any old time.”

“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.”

“Flakes of white fall thru the trees and onto the road, catching on our clothes and hair. It's a silent fall and it's weird how it makes everything else seem quiet, too, like it's trying to tell you a secret, a terrible, terrible secret.”

“Life ain't fair.It ain't.Not never.”

“I rub the ears of my dog, my stupid goddam ruddy great dog that I never wanted but who hung around anyway and who followed me thru the swamp and who bit Aaron when he was trying to choke me and who found Viola when she was lost and who's licking my hand with his little pink tongue and whose eye is still mostly squinted shut from where Mr. Prentiss Jr. kicked him and whose tail is way way shorter from where Matthew Lyle cut it off when my dog - my dog - went after a man with a machete to save me and who's right there when I need pulling back from the darkness I fall into and who tells me who I am whenever I forget.”

“Schooling ain't life.""Ain't it?" she says, her eyebrows raising in mock surprise.”

“I take my rucksack and go out the opening where the front door used to be. Manchee gets up from where he's curled and follows me. When I sit down, he recurls by my legs and fall asleep, farting happily and giving a doggy sigh. Simple to be a dog.”

“Viola blows out a thoughtful air. "My dad used to say, 'There's only forward, Vi, only outward and up.'""There's only forward," I repeat."Outward and up," she says.”

“But I'm still thinking about being born on a spaceship, an honest to badness spaceship. Growing up while flying along the stars, able to go wherever you wanted, not stuck on some hateful planet which clearly don't want you. You could go anywhere. If one place didn't suit, you'd find another. Full freedom in all direkshuns. Could there possibly be anything cooler in the whole world than that?”

“I'll ask ye this once," the woman says, lifting the rifle again. "Am I gonna need this?"I exchange a glance with Viola."No," I say."No, mam," Viola says.Mam? I think."It's like sir, bonny boy." The woman slings the rifle over her shoulder by its strap. "For if yer a-talking to a lady.”

“We don't say nothing more. What else is there to say? Everything and nothing. You can't say everything, so you don't say nothing.”

“I just stand there like a doofus wondering just what in the effing blazes is going on.”

“Poo" Manchee barks quielty to himself. "Poo, poo, poo.""Just have yer stupid poo and quit yapping about it.”

“Submit! Juliet's Joy screeches underneath him at no one in particular."I've got to get a new horse," the Mayor mutters.”

“Choices may be unbelievably hard but they're never impossible. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that's not how a person with integrity acts.”

“It's not that you should never love something so much that it can control you.It's that you need to love something that much so you can never be controlled.It's not a weakness.It's your best strength.”

“I was only following orders," the Mayor mocks. "The refuge of scoundrels since the dawn of time.”

“To live is to fight, to preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.”

“I’ll find you—Keep calling for me, Viola—Cuz here I come.”

“His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still-See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and-"Oh, God," he says, looking away suddenly. "Viola, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"But I just put my hand to the back of his neck-And he says, "Viola-?"And I pull myself towards him-And I kiss him.And it feels like, finally.”

“Girls are small and polite and smiley. They wear dresses and their hair is long and it’s pulled into shapes behind their heads or on either side.”