We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we'd go crazy. Patrick Ness More Quotes by Patrick Ness More Quotes From Patrick Ness Limitations can be hugely creative and hugely inspiring - so long as they are the ones you choose for yourself. Patrick Ness you-choosecreativelong I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette but if I do then within that, I can be creative. Patrick Ness palettecreativeifs I live in England, so I take a lot of trains, and you can't really go anywhere without somebody talking on their mobile phone behind you, forcing you to listen to their conversation. With the Internet, with texting, with networking sites, there's already information everywhere. Patrick Ness phoneyouinternetconversation 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 greatthinkyouideas 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 beautiful-womangirlbeautifulfunny Anything that anybody wants to give me is great! I've had folk songs, heavy metal songs, jewellery... I would never call anything any fan gives me weird, as it's how people express what they like about the books, what it means to them, and that's a wonderful thing. Patrick Ness weirdgreatmepeople When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best. Patrick Ness bestjustwritingtrying Online is such a brilliant, brilliant way to connect with young readers - even if they just want to tweet, 'Hey, I read your book!' - that, absolutely, I connect with that. But I also treat writing as solitary and keep it to myself as long as I can. Patrick Ness treatmyselflongbook 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 experiencefirejoypeople We have lost the idea that something can be secret because it is valuable, not because it's shameful. If you share everything with everybody, what have you got for yourself? I tweet and I blog, but I save a lot for myself. Not because I am ashamed. Patrick Ness i-amyourselfmyselfyou I got tired of books where the boy is a bit thick and the girl's very clever. Why does it have to such an opposition? Why can't they be like the girls and boys that I know personally, who are equally funny and equally cross? Who get things equally wrong and are equally brave? And make the same mistakes? Patrick Ness tiredgirlbravefunny Your reader is interested in a guileless, fresh, first-time-we-talked-about-it way. What a great liberation that is. And teenagers, if you respect them, will follow you a lot further than adults will, without fear of being a genre that they may not like or have been told not to like. They just want a story. Patrick Ness greatyourespectfear In some ways. I always feel between worlds, between cultures, and I think that's not necessarily a bad place for a writer to be. Writers are kind of on the fringe anyway, observing, writing things down. I'm still mostly American, but it's a nice tension. Patrick Ness downfeelplacethink It's fun being paid to read stuff and air your opinion about it - pretty much a dream job for a writer. Patrick Ness jobopiniondreamfun A book cannot apologize for what people may think it should be. It has to be authoritative. That's what I want as a reader - I want to be confident that the book will do its job. Patrick Ness jobthinkbookpeople For me, when I start a novel, I only have a general sense of what I am going to do - usually three or four big scenes or something to which I can really respond emotionally. Patrick Ness i-amstartmei-can The magical and fantastical isn't something I'm uncomfortable with in books, and I chafe slightly at the idea that a purely realist novel somehow has more value. Patrick Ness valuemoresomethinguncomfortable 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 nobodystorymepeople Folk tales and myths, they've lasted for a reason. We tell them over and over because we keep finding truths in them, and we keep finding life in them. Patrick Ness findingtellreasonlife The books I like to read the most feel like they've been written by somebody who had to write them or go crazy. They had to get them out of their heads. I like that kind of urgency. Patrick Ness feelgolikecrazy
