Patrick Ness Quotations | Page 2

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.

When I'm writing, I'm just in it and trying to figure out what seems best.

The world is cynical and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that that's always the truth.

It's really important to me not to be a snob about age division or about genre or whatever. The story needs to be what the story needs to be.

It's fun being paid to read stuff and air your opinion about it - pretty much a dream job for a writer.

I think the reason teenage fiction is so popular with adults is that adults hunger for narrative just as badly as teenagers do.

I meet blind and partially-sighted young readers all the time, and it's a shock that so few books are available to them.

I like writing for teenagers because they're not snobs.

How you leave the reader is so important - not the climax; I call it the 'exit feeling'.

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.