Everybody was hoping for something, talking about our new life to come and all that they hoped from it. Fresh air, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Real gravity, instead of the fake kind that broke sometimes (even though no one over fifteen would admit that it was actually really fun when it did). All the wide open spaces we’d have, all the new people we’d meet when we woke them up, ignoring completely what happened to the original settlers, super-confident that we were so much better equipped that nothing bad could possibly happen to us. All this hope, and here I was, right at the very edge of it, looking out into the darkness, the first to see it coming, the first to greet it when we found out what it really looked like.

— Patrick Ness

Feelings don't try to kill you, even the painful ones. Anxiety is a feeling grown too large. A feeling grown aggressive and dangerous. You're responsible for its consequences, you're responsible for treating it

— Patrick Ness

Funny how you can forget that every family isn't like yours.

— Patrick Ness

He answered the phone to his daughter with a broken but joyous heart, ready to speak with her of astonishment and wonder.

— Patrick Ness

Heart's like the song of a family where everything's always all right, it's a song of belonging that makes you belong just by hearing it, it's a song that'll always take care of you and never leave you. If you have a heart, it breaks, if you have a heart that's broken, it fixes.

— Patrick Ness

He is worse than the others, I show. He is worst of all of them. Because–Because he knew he was doing wrong. He felt the pain of his actions–But he did not amend them, shows the Sky. The rest are worth as much as their pack animals, I show, but worst is the one who knows better and does nothing.

— Patrick Ness

HELP!” I race to the square, crossing it, looking all around, listening

— Patrick Ness

HELP!” I race to the square, crossing it, looking all around, listening out-. 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

Her accent's funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown's. Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they're swooping down on them from above, pushing them into shape, telling them what to say. In Prentisstown, everyone talks like they're sneaking up on their words, ready to club them from behind.

— Patrick Ness

He really is alone in whatever hell this is. Completely and utterly alone.' It isn't,' he thinks, as he trudges back toward his house, 'the most unfamiliar feeling in the world.

— Patrick Ness