Robert O Mahony

“And at first it's okay, you know, not perfect, but okay, and you get used to it. Then it gets a little worse, and you get used to that, too. Then one day, you wake up and you don't have the first freakin' clue how it got that bad.”
― Patrick Ness, More Than This

“Listen! I will be honest with you,
I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,
These are the days that must happen to you:
You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,
You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,
You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,
You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you,
What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting,
You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you."

-from "Song of the Open Road”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“All stories begin before they start and never, ever finish.”
― Patrick Ness, The Crane Wife

“No one wanted to hear that people other than themselves might be complicated, that no one was ever just one thing, no history ever just one version.”
― Patrick Ness, The Crane Wife