My Ness Quotes & Sayings

Cept for Ben, who I can't describe much further without seeming soft and stupid and like a boy, so I won't, just to say that I never knew my pa, but if you woke up one day and had a choice of picking one from a selecshun, if someone said, here, then, boy, pick who you want, then Ben wouldn't be the worst choice you could make that morning. — Patrick Ness

My Heart Is a Holy Place

My heart is a holy place
Wiser and holier than I know it to be
Wiser than my lips can speak
A spring of mystery and grace.
You have created my heart
And have filled it with things of wonder.
You have sculpted it, shaped it with your hands
Touched it with your breath.
In its own season it reveals itself to me.
It shows me rivers of gold
Flowing in elegance
And hidden paths of infinite beauty.
You touch me with your stillness as I await its time.
You have made it a dwelling place of richness and intricacies
Of wisdom beyond my understanding
Of grace and mysteries, from your hands. — Patricia Van Ness

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. — Patrick Ness

I like the busy-ness of office life. What I discovered, to my surprise, is that I love the solitary nature of writing. What happens is that you write when you're ready. — Joseph Kanon

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. — Patrick Ness

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. — Patrick Ness

Very few things hurt my young ego more than an Asian female openly shaming me for my Asian-ness. If she could not accept me, who could? If even Asian women saw the men of their own blood as less than other men, what was the use in arguing otherwise? — Alex Tizon

When you are asked, "What am I holding in my hand?" and answer, "a cup," you have just grasped on to "cup-ness." You have identified an object within the context of a conceptual framework - a word, a sign. So the mind that latches on to a sign - here an image commonly designated as a "cup" - does so through grasping. Although you are merely identifying "That's a cup," this is also a form of grasping. It may not be the kind of grasping that will lead to endless misery, but it is a subtle form of grasping. — B. Alan Wallace

Manchee gets up from where he's curled and follows me. When I sit down, he recurls by my legs and falls asleep, farting happily and giving a doggy sigh. Simple to be a dog. I — 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

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 - — Patrick Ness

If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them. — Patrick Ness

We ain't spies," I say in a hurry.
"The army your girl's been talking about has been spotted marching down the river road," Doctor Snow says. "One of our scouts just reported them as less than an hour away."
"Oh, no," I hear Viola whisper.
"She ain't my girl," I say, low.
"What?" Doctor Snow says.
"What?" Viola says.
"She's her own girl," I say. "She don't belong to anyone."
And does Viola ever look at me. — Patrick Ness

As long as I hold it as long as I use it, the knife lives, lives in order to take life, but it has to be commanded, it has to have me to tell it to kill, and it wants to, it wants to plunge and thrust and cut and stab and gouge, but I have to want it to as well, my will has to join with its will.
I'm the one who allows it and I'm the one responsible. — Patrick Ness

Everything that's happened has brought me here, to this place, with this knife in my hand, and something worth saving. — Patrick Ness

And, lastly, there's a small pack of wide-eyed innocents in awe of my Beacon-ness who follow me around expecting me to perform a miracle any minute. Sometimes I screw up my face like I'm trying. Or constipated. — Eliza Crewe

I fight them every time I bandage the blackened eye of a woman, every time I remove shrapnel from a bomb victim. That's my war. That's the war I'm fighting. — Patrick Ness

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 me.
And i fall back into it. — Patrick Ness

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. — Patrick Ness

No," Seth says, firmly, "what I've learned is that there actually is more. There's you guys. You guys are my more. — Patrick Ness

I really hated being the Norwegian girl in every single conversation in Australia, so I tried to make my Norwegian-ness invisible, speaking like whoever was around me. — Jenny Hval

There's always a choice," Viola says by my side.
"Oh, people like to say that," the Mayor says. "It makes them feel better. — Patrick Ness

There's a quiet moment when my Noise fills the room with Manchee, just fills it with him, side to side, barking and barking and needing a poo and barking some more. And dying. — Patrick Ness

We stay watching the fire, which probably is just a fire, but we watch it together. Me and my friends. And there'll be a tomorrow, of course there will, when it all begins again, but right now is almost a kind of loop for me, something to feel on the inside of, but this time it's good. It's a loop with my friends that would even be a pretty damn good forever. — Patrick Ness

What talking is for
Gather the pieces, so I can show you what is. That's what talking is for,
to help us be one. Many-ness is having sixty different emotions. Unity is peace
and silence. I know I ought to stop now, but the excitement of this keeps opening my mouth
like a sneeze or a yawn does. Muhammad says, I ask forgiveness seventy times
a day, and I do the same. Forgive my talking so much, but the way God makes mysteries
manifest quickens and keeps the flow of words continual. — Rumi

He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down into him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.
"Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"
He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola. Terrible things-"
"We all fall, you said." I'm gripping his hand now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again. — Patrick Ness

I am Todd Hewitt, I think to myself with my eyes closed. I am twelve years and twelve months old. I live in Prentisstown on New World. I will be a man in one month's time exactly. — Patrick Ness

Ultimately, my connection to my Indian-ness comes back to my mom and dad. They would all tell me and my siblings stories about their life in India, so it was very close to my two brothers and my sister and I. — Nikki Haley

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

I read things like theology, and I read about science, 'Scientific American' and publications like that, because they stimulate again and again my sense of the almost arbitrary given-ness of experience, the fact that nothing can be taken for granted. — Marilynne Robinson

But then I think Viola -
I think of her out there -
And I push it back -
I feel my hands on the floor -
I use them to rise to my knees -
I lift my head -
To see the Mayor's surprised face only a yard or so away, coming toward me, something in his hand-
"Goodness," he says, sounding almost cheerful. "Even stronger than I thought. — Patrick Ness

Live and let live, be and let be, Hear and let hear, see and let see ... Live and let live and remember this line: 'Your bus'ness is your bus'ness and my bus'ness is mine.' — Cole Porter

I don't think so," the Mayor buzzes -
And my feet stop running -
But then I pick up one -
And then the other -
And I'm running for it again -
I hear the Mayor laugh behind me. "Well done," he says. — Patrick Ness

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 ... — Patrick Ness

I wanted to say a certain thing to a certain man, a certain true thing that had crept into my head. I opened my head, at the place provided, and proceeded to pronounce the true thing that lay languishing there - that is, proceeded to propel that trueness, that felicitous trularity, from its place inside my head out into world life. The certain man stood waiting to receive it. His face reflected an eager accepting-ness. Everything was right. I propelled, using my mind, my mouth, all my muscles. I propelled. I propelled and propelled. I felt trularity inside my head moving slowly through the passage provided (stained like the caves of Lascaux with garlic, antihistamines, Berloiz, a history, a history) toward its debut on the world stage. Past my teeth, with their little brown sweaters knitted of gin and cigar smoke, toward its leap to critical scrutiny. Past my lips, with their tendency to flake away in cold weather - — Donald Barthelme

His Noise saying, No, no, not now, not NOW-
And then he says, Viola?
"I'm here, Todd," I say, my voice breaking, shouting with desperation. "I'm here!"
And he says Voila? again-
Asking it-
Asking like he's not sure I'm there-
And then his Noise falls completely silent-
And he stops struggling-
And looking right into my eyes-
He dies.
My Todd dies. — Patrick Ness

No we talked about matter- most notably quarks, those tiniest possible components of everything.They come in six flavors, you know: up, down, top, bottom, charm and strange. I'll admit those talks helped me, and when i read about the sea quarks, I understood why. They contained particles of matter and antimatter, and where the two touch exists this constant stream of creation and annihilation. Scientist call this place "the sea," and it's what pitches inside of me as I hurry away from Mr. Byles, ignoring his furrowed brow, his worried frown.
I am of the sea.
I am of instability.
I am of harsh, choppy waves roiling with all the up-ness, down-ness, top-ness, bottom-ness contained within my being.
I am of charm and strange.
Annihilation.
Creation.
Annihilation. — Stephanie Kuehn

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

It's like a cat bell, so pretty yet alarming, because i know I'm letting myself fall when maybe I should fly away. But the loneliness inside, it's so fucking painful. It's that longing feeling that scratches to escape and makes you want to blurt out all kinds of gushy crap just to get the girl to look at you ... I hate it. Love its melty-ness and hate its leash around my neck. — Lisa McMann

And what other kind of man would you want leading you into battle?" he says, reading my Noise. "What other kind of man is suitable for war?"
A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes monsters of men.
"Wrong," says the Mayor. "It's war that makes us men in the first place. Until there's war, we are only children."
Another blast of the horn comes roaring down at us, so loud it nearly takes our heads off and it puts the army off its stride for a second or two.
We look up the road to the bottom of the hill. We see Spackle torches gathering there to meet us.
"Ready to grow up, Todd?" the Mayor asks. — Patrick Ness

Every morning, I go off to a small studio behind my house to write. I try to ignore all email and phone calls until lunchtime. Then I launch into the sometimes frantic busy-ness of a tightly scheduled day. — Daniel Goleman

I'm being careful with here, Harlow told me, apparently irritated by something I hadn't even had the time to say yet. She was making assumptions about my no-fun-at-all-ness. They were good assumptions. — Karen Joy Fowler

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. — Patrick Ness

But are you finding monastic history a very compelling reason to live?"
"I'm not human," he said. "I don't require a reason to live. Living is my default condition."
I couldn't help it; I laughed, and teas weleld in my eyes. That answer was quintessentially Orma, distilled to his elemental Orma-ness. — Rachel Hartman

Christ's own 'God-forsaken-ness' on the cross showed me where God is present where God had been present in those nights of deaths in the fire storms in Hamburg and where God would be present in my future whatever may come. — Jurgen Moltmann

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. — Patrick Ness

The true instrument is that, with the help of which, the egoism and my-ness goes away. — Dada Bhagwan

The purpose of a volcano is to die,' she says. 'Is this not what you strive for?'
'The purpose of a volcano is to die, my lady,' says the volcano, 'but as angrily as possible. — Patrick Ness

The attitude is in my personality. It's going to come out in the songs no matter what. If you're pushing the vocal constantly at 10, there's no room for any dynamics. There's no room for any variation in tone. There's no room for anything. — Mike Ness

Don't build yourself an ivory tower" the moralists say. But I am an ivory tower by the mere fact that I am. On the crude physical level the body is a frame of (ivory) bones on which the muscles are stretched, crowned by an (ivory) bone pill-box turret housing the brain - shielding it from the blows of 'reality' so that it can get on with its absurd work undisturbed. On the non-physical level my I-ness is an ivory tower of orderly individual views and vistas shielding 'me' from being swallowed up in chaos. Dear moralists: don't they see that life is a constant flight up and down the endless steps of the dark ivory tower seeking to escape from the horrid chaos of real freedom? — Nanamoli Thera

"Vell," said Mr. Weller, "Now I s'pose he'll want to call some witnesses to speak to his character, or p'raps to prove a alleybi. I've been a turnin' the bis'ness over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, Sammy. I've got some friends as'll do either for him, but my adwice 'ud be this here-never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi. Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing." — Charles Dickens

We drove in silence for a while.
"Can I have a gun?" I asked.
"No!"
"Just a little one? For my handbag? It'll give me some street cred with the client."
"No! No! No!"
His clenched fists pounded the steering wheel with each word.
- heller 1 — J.D. Nixon

To search for power within myself means I must be willing to move through being afraid to whatever lies beyond. If I look at my most vulnerable places and acknowledge the pain I have felt, I can remove the source of that pain from my enemies' arsenals. My history cannot be used to feather my enemies' arrows then, and that lessens their power over me. Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me. I am who I am, doing what I came to do, acting upon you like a drug or a chisel to remind you of your me-ness, as I discover you in myself. — Audre Lorde

He steps away from her, going to a little side table and removing a cloth that's lying on top. Underneath are severale shiny bits of metal. Mr. Hammar picks one up.
"And now for the second part of our interview", he says, approaching the woman.
Who starts to scream.
"That was," Davy says, pacing around as we wait outside but it's all he can get out. "That was." He turns to me. "Holy crap, Todd."
I don't say nothing, just take the apple I've been saving outta my pocket. "Apple," I whisper to Angharrad, my head close to hers. — Patrick Ness

You nicked-named my daughter after the Lock Ness Monster! — Stephenie Meyer

We sure as ruddy heck ain't in Prentisstown no more, I say to Manchee under my breath. — Patrick Ness

I wake up to my three dogs and my wife in bed and the kids, and those are the best gifts that I have. — Mike Ness

I mean, really: He called me 33 percent lesbian, which was a gross underestimation of my lesbian-ness. — Reese Witherspoon

Though it's a film about cross-border love, there isn't a word of politics in it. Forget politics, there isn't slap, not even a raised voice in Veer-Zaara(2004). It's a very intense, humane and emotional story. Veer-Zaara (2004) is a humble tribute to my home in Punjab. It's my tribute to the one-ness of people on both sides of the border. Every religion preaches peace. Then why the bloodshed for the sake of religion? Why are we destroying each other?. — Yash Chopra

It took a long time, but my heart now feels full when I think of him. When you fall in love again - which I have - it's funny the other things that come back in with that open-ness. You have this ghost chorus of the lovers who came before, but they're benign now, they're good spirits. — Emma Forrest

Gust of British wind tousles my hair. (Top of the morning! Oh, no, wait, that's Irish.) It's — Patrick Ness

Connor:I let her go. I could have held on but I let her go.
The Monster:And that is the truth.
Connor:I didn't mean it, though! I didn't mean to let her go! And now it's for real! Now she's going to die and it's my fault!
The Monster:And that is not the truth at all. — Patrick Ness

She turns to me sharply. "To live _is_ to fight," she snaps. "To preserve life is to fight _everything_ that man stands for." She takes an angry huff of air. "And now her, too, with all the bombs. I fight them every time I bandage the blackened eye of a woman, every time I remove shrapnel from a bomb victim."
Her voice has raised but she lowers it again. "That's my war," she says. "That's the war I'm fighting. — Patrick Ness

I get tired of comedies where there are a bunch of funny guys and a beautiful woman who doesn't do anything funny. And I don't like books where there's a rough-and-tumble boy and a really clever, snotty girl. That's just not my experience with teenagers. — Patrick Ness

I feel like I'm way down this deep, deep hole and I'm looking up and all there is is this little dot of light and I have to shout at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me and even when I do, I say the wrong thing or they don't really listen or they're just humouring me. — Patrick Ness

Cuz when I held you for the first time this morning and fed you from my own body, I felt so much love for you it was almost like pain, almost like I couldn't stand it one longer. — Patrick Ness

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

I think I'm probably going to have more luck on tour, on the road, than I am at home, because as hectic as traveling can be, I have a little bit more control, for life situations out there on the road. It's the one aspect of my life I feel like I do have some control of. I can wake up in my hotel room, I'm alone and I can ease into the day and do what I need to do. It's not like I've got to get up and drive the kids to school, feed the dog, get to the gym, go to practice, go pay a bill, you know what I mean? — Mike Ness

Whenever I have tried to write for other people, that's when my writing has failed, when nobody wanted to read it or buy it. But it's only when I've been able to write a story that makes me excited, only then have other people wanted to read it. — Patrick Ness

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. — Patrick Ness

I couldn't stand the waiting anymore. I couldn't stand how alone it made me feel."
And a part of you wished it would just end, said the monster, even if it meant losing her.
And the nightmare began. The nightmare that always ended with -
"I let her go," Conor choked out. "I could have held on but I let her go."
And that, the monster said, is the truth.
"I didn't mean it, though!" Conor said, his voice rising. "I didn't mean to let her go! And now it's for real! Now she's going to die and it's my fault!"
And that, the monster said, is not the truth at all. — Patrick Ness

Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn't choose them, I don't fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don't keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect. — Mary Oliver

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. — Patrick Ness

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. — Patrick Ness

Jenna is the kind of beautiful that I can get lost in. Lost from all the fucked-up-ness in my head. She's the kind of beautiful that laughs at all my non funny jokes because she gets me. She's the kind of beautiful that'll put me in my place without batting an eye. Jenna is the kind of beautiful that can transform a non believing man like me into a man who wants more. A man who can fall hard, stumbling over his own two feet because he's so tangled up in her. — E.L. Montes

THERE IT IS,' my mother says, and what she means is that the dot we've been nearing for weeks, the one that's been growing into a larger dot with two smaller dots circling it, has now become even larger than that, growing from a dot to a disc, shining back the light from its sun, until you can see the blue of its oceans, the green of its forests, the white of its polar caps, a circle of colour against the black beyond. — Patrick Ness

I wanted so badly for there to be more. I ached for there to be more than my crappy little life.' He shakes his head. 'And there was more. I just couldn't see it. — Patrick Ness

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. — Patrick Ness

Yep. His epic good looks without succumbing to the adorable label had made him a man-unicorn in my mind. Or a merman. Or a Loch Ness Monstman. He was a mystical creature. — Penny Reid

Just remember, please, most of that stuff is in the past. It isn't the story I want to tell. At all.
You needed to know it, but for the rest of this, I'm choosing my own story.
Because if you can't do that, you might as well just give up. — Patrick Ness

Rewards, my tender pigpiss. — Patrick Ness

I thought I had more. I thought Gudmund was my more. It didn't matter how crap everything else was. The stuff with Owen, The stuff with my parents, even later with the stuff at school. I could live with all of that, because I had him. He was mine and no one else's. We lived in this private world, that no one else knew about and no one else ever lived in. — Patrick Ness

I just feel like my body is in all these different pieces and even though it looks like I'm all put together, the pieces are really just floating there and if I fall down too hard, I'll fly apart. — Patrick Ness

I was taught early on in my recovery that, 'Pain is good. Extreme pain is extremely good.' — Mike Ness

Once the egoism has gone (stopped), all the worldly 'matter' of the body-complex [pudgal] are renounced! Where there is egoism, there is my-ness and where there is my-ness, there is a hidden egoism. When 'Knowledge of the Self' is attained, egoism and my-ness goes away. Only the dramatic (discharge) 'egoism' and 'my-ness' will remain. — Dada Bhagwan

It's like he's my family, except better, because I've chosen him. — Patrick Ness

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

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. — Patrick Ness

There aren't any more treatments." "I'm sorry, son," his mum said, tears sneaking out of her eyes now, even though she kept up her smile. "I've never been more sorry about anything in my life." Conor — Patrick Ness

I never want to lose my Canadian-ness ... and when I say Canadian-ness, I mean down-to-earth. I like being able to not take myself seriously and to not feel entitled. — Cobie Smulders

Egoism [Ahamkar: Aham=I; kar=did] means 'I did'. Where one is not the doer and he says, 'I did'; that is egoism. To do egoism and to walk around with an inflated chest is pride (maan) and then to go on telling others 'I did it myself', is known as pride with my-ness (abhiman). — Dada Bhagwan

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

Tremendous my-ness' [mamta] is bound in the presence of Soul [Atma], and it is also in the presence of Soul that this my-ness is tremendously dissipated. — Dada Bhagwan

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. — Patrick Ness

But the Spackle War was over a long time ago, wasn't it?"
"Thirteen years now."
"Thirteen years where you could have righted a wrong."
She finally looks at me. "Life is only that simple when you're young, my girl. — Patrick Ness

People get to a certain age and success that they stop being curious. I'm still curious because I haven't really had that success. I've never done a record to catch whatever the latest sound is. It's my love of music, eclectic-ness, and the music that I heard my entire life that seeps in. That's what you're hearing. — Jill Sobule

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. — Patrick Ness

This is what war does. Right here, in my hands. This is war. — Patrick Ness

The heft of a life in the hands grows both lighter and weightier. Over time, my life has become more saturated with its shape and made-ness, while my poems have become more and more free. The first word of every poem might be "Yes." The next words: "And then." — Jane Hirshfield

Limitations can be hugely creative and hugely inspiring - so long as they are the ones you choose for yourself. I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette, but if I do, then within that, I can be creative. — Patrick Ness