Patrick Ness

“When one falls we all fall.”

“But you can’t make war personal,” I say, “or you’ll never make the right decisions.”“And if you didn’t make personal decisions, you wouldn’t be a person. All war is personal somehow, isn’t it? For somebody? Except it’s usually hate.”“Lee—”“I’m just saying how lucky he is to have someone love him so much they’d take on the whole world.” His Noise is uncomfortable, wondering what I’m looking like, how I’m responding. “That’s all I’m saying.”“He’d do it for me,” I say quietly.I’d do it for you too, Lee’s Noise says.And I know he would.But those people who die because we do it, don’t they have people who’d kill for them?So who’s right?”

“I can read it.I can read her.Cuz she’s thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She’s wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma’s. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she’s taking the song of my pa and she’s weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.And it hurts her, but it’s an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it’s good, but it hurts.She hurts.I know all this.I know it’s true.Cuz I can read her.I can read her Noise even tho she ain’t got none.I know who she is.I know Viola Eade.”

“I was born into all that, all that mess, the over-crowded swamp and the over-crowded sematary and the not-crowded-enough town, so I don’t remember nothing, don’t remember a world without Noise. My pa died of sickness before I was born and then my ma died, of course, no surprises there. Ben and Cillian took me in, raised me. Ben says my ma was the last of the women but everyone says that about everyone’s ma. Ben may not be lying, he believes it’s true, but who knows?”

“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.”

“Here's what I think," I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my noise like whispers of truth. "I think maybe everybody falls," I say. "I think maybe we all do. And I don't think that's the asking." I pull on her arms gently to make sure she's listening."I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”

“Too much talking," I say. "Not enough running.”

“You starting to feel hope yet?" Viola asks, her voice curious."No," I say, fuddling my noise. "You?"Her eyebrows are up but she shakes her head. "No, No.""But we're going anyway.""Oh, yeah," Viola says. "Hell or high water.""It'll probably be both," I say.”

“You went up a girl and came down a woman.”

“And it feels like, finally.”

“Knowledge is dangerous and men lie and the world changes, whether I want it to or not.”

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

“War makes monsters out of men.”

“It's not the mistakes I made but how I responded to them”

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

“It's not how we fall. It's how we get back up again.”

“To say you have no choice is to relieve yourself of responsibility.”

“You are keeping the possibility [of peace] open. No wise leader would do anything less”

“Faith with proof is no faith at all.”

“The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”

“We are the choices we make.”

“She tried to kill you, Viola. She tried to blow you up... You don't owe her nothing,' he says.But I feel his arms on me and I'm realizing things don't seem so impossible anymore. I feel Todd touching me and there's anger rising in my gut but it's not at him and I grunt and I pull myself up again, leaning on him to keep me there as I stand. 'I do owe her,' I say. 'I owe her the look on her face when she sees me alive.”

“Yer the only friend I got, pigpiss... Ain't that the biggest tragedy you ever heard?”

“I promised to keep on going but maybe keep on going means coming back first.”

“You can't say everything, so you don't say nothing.”

“Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”

“Whereas the town knows all about you already and wants to know more and wants to beat you with what it knows till how can you have any of yourself left at all?" ~pg 11”

“Knowledge is dangerous.”

“When luck ain't with you, it's against you.”

“That it's making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?”

“There's hope at the bottom of the biggest waterfall." ~pg 426”

“War is like a monster," he says, almost to himself. "War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows." He's looking at me now. "And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.”

“Cuz how do you know yer alive if you don't hurt?”

“The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say. About anything. "Need a poo, Todd." "Shutup, Manchee." "Poo. Poo, Todd." "I said shut it.”

“And I know I’ve lost.Everything is lost.Everything is over.“As the newly appointed President of this fair planet of ours,” the Mayor says, holding out his hands as if to show me the world for the first time,” let me be the very first to welcome you to its new capital city.”“Todd?” Viola whispers, her eyes closed.I hold her tightly to me.“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her. “I’m so sorry.”We’ve run right into a trap.We’ve run right off the end of the world.“Welcome,” says the Mayor,” to the New Prentisstown.”

“HELP!”I race to the square, crossing it, looking all around, listening out-No.No.It’s empty.Viola’s breathing heavy in my arms .And Haven is empty.I reach the middle of the square.I don’t see nor hear a soul.I spin around again.“HELP!” I cry.But there’s no one.Haven’s completely empty.There ain’t hope here after all.”

“And she says, “Then let’s just take the effing road and get ourselves to Haven.”I smile, a little. “You said effing,” I say. “You actually said the word effing.”

“And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.Aaron’s Noise roars up in red and black.The current takes us on.“I’m sorry!” I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can’t barely breathe. “I’m sorry, Manchee!”“Todd?” he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. “Todd?”“Manchee!” I scream.Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.“MANCHEE!”“Todd?”And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.And the pain is too much it’s too much it’s too much and my hands are on my head and I’m rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside of me.”

“Spackle!” Manchee barks, tho he’s too chicken to attack now that I’ve held back. “Spackle! Spackle! Spackle!”“Shut up, Manchee,” I say.“Spackle!”“I said shut up!” I shout, which stops him.“Spackle?” Manchee says, unsure of things now.I swallow, trying to get rid of the pressure in my throat, the unbelieveable sadness that comes and comes as I look at it looking back at me. Knowledge is dangerous and men lie and the world keeps changing, whether I want it to or not.Cuz, it ain’t a Spackle.“It’s a girl,” I say.It’s a girl.”

“Manchee comes outta the bushes and sits down next to me cuz I’ve stopped right there in the middle of a trail. He looks around to see what I might be seeing and then he says, ”Good poo, Todd.” ”I’m sure it was, Manchee.”I’d better not get another ruddy dog when my birthday comes. What I want this year is a hunting knife like the one Ben carries on the back of his belt. Now that’s a present for a man.“Poo,” Manchee’s says quietly.”

“Ow, Todd? Ow?”

“And I have this stupid little thought that Aaron didn't survive the croc attack after all, that he died but he's so pissed off at me that dying didn't stop him from coming here to kill me anyway.”

“He's a woman.He's a grown womanHe's a old woman.”

“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. ”

“To see the ocean once is to learn how to miss it. ~Mistress Coyle”