Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men

"What a sad thing men are. Can't do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can't build something up without tearing it down."

"And what other kind of man would you want leading you into battle?” he says, reading my Noise. “What other kind of man is suitable for war?”A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes monsters of men.“Wrong,” says the Mayor. “It’s war that makes us men in the first place. Until there’s war, we are only children.”Another blast of the horn comes roaring down at us, so loud it nearly takes our heads off and it puts the army off its stride for a second or two. We look up the road to the bottom of the hill. We see Spackle torches gathering there to meet us.“Ready to grow up, Todd?” the Mayor asks."

"It's not how we fall. It's how we get back up again."

"To say you have no choice is to relieve yourself of responsibility."

"Choices may be unbelievably hard but they're never impossible. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that's not how a person with integrity acts."

"He is worse than the others, I show. He is worst of all of them. Because–Because he knew he was doing wrong. He felt the pain of his actions–But he did not amend them, shows the Sky. The rest are worth as much as their pack animals, I show, but worst is the one who knows better and does nothing."

"This is what war does. Right here, in my hands. This is war."

"And then his noise falls completely silent-And he stops struggling-And looking right into my eyes-He dies. My Todd dies."

"His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still-See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and-"Oh, God," he says, looking away suddenly. "Viola, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"But I just put my hand to the back of his neck-And he says, "Viola-"And I pull myself towards him-And I kiss him. And it feels like, finally."