Patrick Ness Quotes

I could almost see common sense and denial fighting away at each other within her. In the end, denial won, as it so often does.

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.

I know very well that I have no reason to feel aggrieved - I am fully aware of how lucky I am, but knowing it and still being down makes me hate myself all the more.

Modern science knows much about such conflicts. We call the mental state that engenders it "ambivalence": a collision between thought and feeling.

When I turn the lights out, when I close my eyes, reality overcomes me, I'm living a lie.

Suffering and drama begin when you lie to yourself, even if you don't realize you are lying.

The dimensions of my feelings are too violent.

I think you know what you're up against when you take on a piece that you know is going to involve dragging up a lot emotions - you can end up being deeply immersed in gloom.

My soul is dark with stormy riot: directly traced over to diet.

Sometimes I want to party, sometimes I want to fight and sometimes I want to cry.

…I hate myself for not being able to go downstairs naturally and seek comfort in numbers. I hate myself for having to sit here and be torn between I know not what within me.

And the pleasures and rewards of the intellect are inseparable from angst, uncertainty, conflict and even despair.

No good neurotic finds it difficult to be both opinionated and indecisive.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell.

There are times when things are clear in your head and your heart and everything comes all aligned and it's easy and it just feels good to do something. But most of the time it's not like that. Most of the time there's conflict between your head and your heart.

My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.

I am crazy as hell, but I know it. And knowing it is a kind of sanity that makes the sickness worse.

Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they struggle hard to be such.

Knowing Lissa missed me hurt almost more than if she'd completely written me off. I'd never wanted to hurt her. Even when I'd resented her for feeling like she was controlling my life, I'd never hated her. I loved her like a sister and couldn't stand the thought of her suffering now on my behalf. How had things gotten so screwed up between us?

My day-mind can endure / Upright, in hope, all it must undergo. / But O, afraid, unsure, / My night-mind waking lies too low, too low.

I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do.

I told her I loved her and all. It was a lie, of course, but the thing is, I meant it when I said it. I'm crazy. I swear to God I am.

I'd rather go on hearing your lies, than to go on living without you.