Patrick Ness Quotes

Well, I try my best to be just like I am, But everybody wants you to be just like them, They sing while you slave and I just get bored

Once you don't have freedom and you're obliged to do many things you don't want, and it becomes a routine, then your identity is at stake because you can feel that you are not anymore yourself, that you are what they want you to be - and you can lose yourself.

I find it so ironic that all you do, for the earliest part of your life, is try to be like everybody else. And then you turn 30, and you realize all you want to do is distinguish yourself in some way.

I'm going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I'm not going to be what you want me to be.

"I don't know how to say it exactly. Only... I want to die as myself. Does that make any sense?" he asks. I shake my head. How could he die as anyone but himself. "I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not."

We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.

Everybody sacrifices something in an attempt to reach what they think society wants.

You can't lose yourself.

Everybody is always tugging at you. They'd all like a sort of chunk out of you. I don' think they realize it, but it's like 'grrr do this, grr do that' But you do want to stay intact-intact and on two feet.

All one can do for one's character in times like these, is to prove that one does not belong to these times.

The world goes on, stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can't you see? I do not.

The biggest danger, for me, with making yourself your act is that a lot of people with think they know you for better or worse. That's an ongoing struggle with me and it can get really trippy sometimes. I try to be strong about it and assure myself that only my close friends and family can really pass judgement on me personally, but it's impossible to not let it get to you.

You have ideas planted in your head, thoughts you never had before, that tell you how you have to act, how you have to dress and who you have to be. I have been trying to push back, to be authentic, to follow my heart, but it can be hard.

People are expecting me to be a certain way all the time. It's not like if I come in here with a totally different personality and right before the camera starts they see this new character. It confuses everything. Life has a consensus reality to it and if you use that to your advantage it makes it much easier.

I really want my kids to feel, is that they can be themselves in the world.

I for one don't want to be ranked among idiots, felons, and minors any longer, for I am none of them.

She used to say 'You can be whoever you want, even yourself'.... Yeah, I show up knowin exactly who I was and never leave as myself

Do whatever you want because that's not what you are. That's what you do for the moment.

In ‘life,’ I don’t want to be reduced to my work. In ‘work,’ I don’t want to be reduced to my life.

I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. we must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

For the more a soul conforms to the sanity of others, the more does it become insane.

I just imagine that every song in and of itself is great, but when you add them all up, it's too much of me maybe.

The real challenge is not simply to survive. Hell, anyone can do that. It’s to survive as yourself, undiminished.

It doesn't surprise me that people can't see beyond my image. It's amazing, but I can understand it. That's what image is for. But it's never a problem for me. It's only a problem for them. I don't really care. I do what I want regardless.

It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.