Patrick Ness
Patrick Ness
Patrick Nessis an American author, journalist and lecturer who moved to London at age of 28 and now holds dual citizenship. He is best known for his books for young adults, including the Chaos Walking trilogy and A Monster Calls...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth17 October 1971
CountryUnited States of America
best books characters definitely difficult fall love
The best characters in books are always the difficult ones, and why would you want to fall in love with someone difficult? The ones I'd fall in love with are the ones I'd definitely keep out of a book.
happiness mine prefer shares
Happiness is precious, and so I prefer to keep mine private. In a world where everyone shares everything, I can think of a lot of happy moments, but they're mine.
No one wants to read an apologetic book.
books boy bunch comedies experience funny guys tired woman
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.
save share tweet
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.
films mobile puts
If you're 15 and you tell someone a secret, they can put it up on Facebook. If you make a mistake, someone films it on their mobile and puts it up on YouTube. When you're 15, you deserve privacy.
bad fringe mostly writers
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.
badly great perform sing theory writer
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.
adjective allegiance mediocre setting
If you set out to write an adjective novel, you're setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it.
somebody written
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.
fear follow further genre great interested liberation reader respect
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.
years giving wish
I wish I had a hundred years, she said, very quietly. A hundred years I could give to you.
saws invisible
Conor was no longer invisible. They all saw him now. But he was further away than ever.
healing half belief
Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits.