A Monster Calls

by

Patrick Ness

Conor O’Malley Character Analysis

The protagonist of the book, thirteen-year-old Conor is very responsible for his age, due primarily to the fact that his mother was diagnosed with cancer a year before the start of the book. Conor is her primary caretaker because Conor’s mother and father had gotten divorced five years before her diagnosis. At the beginning of the story, Conor refuses to believe that his mother’s health is deteriorating and tries to act as though everything is normal. However, different people and events prevent Conor from pretending that everything is normal. At school, he is very isolated, because his friend Lily told a few friends that his mother is sick, and word quickly got to the entire school. The students subsequently ignore him, worried that they might say the wrong thing. Additionally, his father and grandmother visit, which also makes Conor’s denial difficult. Both try to convince Conor that his mother isn’t getting any better, but he refuses to accept this. He also tries to push away the recurring nightmare that he keeps having, in which a creature tries to drag his mother over the edge of a cliff, and Conor is unable to hold onto her and save her. The guilt that Conor feels as a result of this nightmare is what calls the monster to him: an enormous being that takes the form of the yew tree outside Conor’s house. The monster tells Conor stories to try to help him acknowledge that life, and human emotions, are very complicated. With the monster’s help, Conor ultimately accepts the fact that in his nightmare, he could have held onto his mother longer but chose not to, because he just wants her pain—and his own pain—to finally end. Conor thus exhibits conflicting emotions: he wants the waiting regarding her illness to be over, but he is also desperate for her not to die. By accepting these complicated feelings, and by ultimately telling his mother that he doesn’t want her to go, he is finally able to feel like he might survive her death.

Conor O’Malley Quotes in A Monster Calls

The A Monster Calls quotes below are all either spoken by Conor O’Malley or refer to Conor O’Malley. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death, Denial, and Acceptance Theme Icon
).
A Monster Calls Quotes

He’d told no one about the nightmare. Not his mum, obviously, but no one else either, not his dad in their fortnightly (or so) phone call, definitely not his grandma, and no one at school. Absolutely not.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, Conor’s Father
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:
Breakfast Quotes

But she wasn’t in the kitchen. Which meant she was probably still up in her bed. Which meant Conor would have to make his own breakfast, something he’d grown used to doing. Fine. Good, in fact, especially this morning.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’m going to be late,” Conor said, eyeing the clock.

“Okay, sweetheart,” she said, teetering over to kiss him on the forehead. “You’re a good boy,” she said again. “I wish you didn’t have to be quite so good.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), Conor’s Mother (speaker), Conor’s Grandmother
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Three Stories Quotes

You know that is not true, the monster said. You know that your truth, the one that you hide, Conor O’Malley, is the thing you are most afraid of.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
The Wildness of Stories Quotes

And you have worse things to be frightened of, said the monster, but not as a question.

Conor looked at the ground, then up at the moon, anywhere but at the monster’s eyes. The nightmare feeling was rising in him, turning everything around him to darkness, making everything seem heavy and impossible, like he’d been asked to lift a mountain with his bare hands and no one would let him leave until he did.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
The Rest of the First Tale Quotes

You think I tell you stories to teach you lessons? the monster said. You think I have come walking out of time and earth itself to teach you a lesson in niceness?

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Grandmother, The Evil Queen, The Young Prince, The Farmer’s Daughter
Page Number: 63
Explanation and Analysis:

There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.

Conor shook his head. “That’s a terrible story. And a cheat.”

It is a true story, the monster said. Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve, farmers’ daughters die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, The Evil Queen, The Young Prince, The Farmer’s Daughter
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:
Understanding Quotes

Those friends told a few more, who told a few more, and before the day was half through, it was like a circle had opened around him, a dead area with Conor at the center, surrounded by land mines that everyone was afraid to walk through.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Lily Andrews
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

And for a moment, Conor was entirely alone.

He knew right then he could probably stay out there all day and no one would punish him for it.

Which somehow made him feel even worse.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry, Miss Kwan, Anton, Sully
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Champ Quotes

“We barely have room for the three of us, Con. Your grandma has a lot more money and space than we do. Plus, you’re in school here, your friends are here, your whole life is here. It would be unfair to just take you out of all that.”

“Unfair to who?” Conor asked.

His father sighed. “This is what I meant,” he said. “This is what I meant when I said you were going to have to be brave.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), Conor’s Father (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Tale Quotes

The yew tree is the most important of all the healing trees, it said. It lives for thousands of years. Its berries, its bark, its leaves, its sap, its pulp, its wood, they all thrum and burn and twist with life. It can cure almost any ailment man suffers from, mixed and treated by the right apothecary.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, The Parson, The Apothecary
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Destruction Quotes

She walked right past him, her face twisted in tears, the moaning spilling out of her again. She went to the display cabinet, the only thing remaining upright in the room.

And she grabbed it by one side—

And pulled on it hard once—

Twice—

And a third time.

Sending it crashing to the floor with a final-sounding crunch.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Grandmother, The Parson
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Invisible Quotes

His classmates kept their distance from him, too, like he was giving off a bad smell. He tried to remember if he’d talked to any of them since he’d arrived this morning. He didn’t think he had. Which meant he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone since his father that morning.

How could something like that happen?

But, finally, here was Harry. And that, at least, felt normal.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, Conor’s Father, Harry, Anton, Sully
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
Could It Be? Quotes

“Son,” his father said, leaning forward. “Stories don’t always have happy endings.”

This stopped him. Because they didn’t, did they? That’s one thing the monster had definitely taught him. Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn’t expect.

Related Characters: Conor’s Father (speaker), Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
The Third Tale Quotes

Harry leaned forward, his eyes flashing. “I see nothing,” he said. Without turning around, Conor asked the monster a question. “What did you do to help the invisible man?”

And he felt the monster’s voice again, like it was in his own head.

I made them see, it said.

Conor clenched his fists even tighter.

Then the monster leapt forward to make Harry see.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Harry (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Lily Andrews
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:
Punishment Quotes

He was going to be punished. It was finally going to happen. Everything was going to make sense again. She was going to expel him.

Punishment was coming.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry, Miss Kwan
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:

There are worse things than being invisible, the monster had said, and it was right.

Conor was no longer invisible. They all saw him now. But he was further away than ever.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Lily Andrews, Harry
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
A Note Quotes

I’m sorry for telling everyone about your mum, read the first line.

I miss being your friend, read the second.

Are you okay? read the third.

I see you, read the fourth, with the I underlined about a hundred times.

Related Characters: Lily Andrews (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis:
Life After Death Quotes

“I’ve known forever she wasn’t going to make it, almost from the beginning. She said she was getting better because that’s what I wanted to hear. And I believed her. Except I didn’t.”

No, the monster said.

Conor swallowed, still struggling. “And I started to think how much I wanted it to be over. How much I just wanted to stop having to think about it. How I couldn’t stand the waiting anymore. I couldn’t stand how alone it made me feel.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:

He faintly felt the huge hands of the monster pick him up, forming a little nest to hold him. He was only vaguely aware of the leaves and branches twisting around him, softening and widening to let him lie back.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

You were merely wishing for the end of pain, the monster said. Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all.

“I didn’t mean it,” Conor said.

You did, the monster said, but you also did not.

Conor sniffed and looked up to its face, which was as big as a wall in front of him. “How can both be true?”

Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour?

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother, The Evil Queen, The Parson, The Young Prince, The Apothecary
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
The Truth Quotes

And he also knew he was going to get through it.

It would be terrible. It would be beyond terrible.

But he’d survive.

And it was for this that the monster came. It must have been.

Conor had needed it, and his need had somehow called it. And it had come walking. Just for this moment.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’ll stay?” Conor whispered to the monster, barely able to speak. “You’ll stay until. . .”

I will stay, the monster said, its hands still on Conor’s shoulders. Now all you have to do is speak the truth.

And so Conor did.

He took in a breath.

And, at last, he spoke the final and total truth.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said, the tears dropping from his eyes, slowly at first, then spilling like a river.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire A Monster Calls LitChart as a printable PDF.
A Monster Calls PDF

Conor O’Malley Quotes in A Monster Calls

The A Monster Calls quotes below are all either spoken by Conor O’Malley or refer to Conor O’Malley. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Death, Denial, and Acceptance Theme Icon
).
A Monster Calls Quotes

He’d told no one about the nightmare. Not his mum, obviously, but no one else either, not his dad in their fortnightly (or so) phone call, definitely not his grandma, and no one at school. Absolutely not.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, Conor’s Father
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:
Breakfast Quotes

But she wasn’t in the kitchen. Which meant she was probably still up in her bed. Which meant Conor would have to make his own breakfast, something he’d grown used to doing. Fine. Good, in fact, especially this morning.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:

“I’m going to be late,” Conor said, eyeing the clock.

“Okay, sweetheart,” she said, teetering over to kiss him on the forehead. “You’re a good boy,” she said again. “I wish you didn’t have to be quite so good.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), Conor’s Mother (speaker), Conor’s Grandmother
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Three Stories Quotes

You know that is not true, the monster said. You know that your truth, the one that you hide, Conor O’Malley, is the thing you are most afraid of.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:
The Wildness of Stories Quotes

And you have worse things to be frightened of, said the monster, but not as a question.

Conor looked at the ground, then up at the moon, anywhere but at the monster’s eyes. The nightmare feeling was rising in him, turning everything around him to darkness, making everything seem heavy and impossible, like he’d been asked to lift a mountain with his bare hands and no one would let him leave until he did.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
The Rest of the First Tale Quotes

You think I tell you stories to teach you lessons? the monster said. You think I have come walking out of time and earth itself to teach you a lesson in niceness?

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Grandmother, The Evil Queen, The Young Prince, The Farmer’s Daughter
Page Number: 63
Explanation and Analysis:

There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.

Conor shook his head. “That’s a terrible story. And a cheat.”

It is a true story, the monster said. Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve, farmers’ daughters die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, The Evil Queen, The Young Prince, The Farmer’s Daughter
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:
Understanding Quotes

Those friends told a few more, who told a few more, and before the day was half through, it was like a circle had opened around him, a dead area with Conor at the center, surrounded by land mines that everyone was afraid to walk through.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Lily Andrews
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:

And for a moment, Conor was entirely alone.

He knew right then he could probably stay out there all day and no one would punish him for it.

Which somehow made him feel even worse.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry, Miss Kwan, Anton, Sully
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Champ Quotes

“We barely have room for the three of us, Con. Your grandma has a lot more money and space than we do. Plus, you’re in school here, your friends are here, your whole life is here. It would be unfair to just take you out of all that.”

“Unfair to who?” Conor asked.

His father sighed. “This is what I meant,” he said. “This is what I meant when I said you were going to have to be brave.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), Conor’s Father (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother
Page Number: 88
Explanation and Analysis:
The Second Tale Quotes

The yew tree is the most important of all the healing trees, it said. It lives for thousands of years. Its berries, its bark, its leaves, its sap, its pulp, its wood, they all thrum and burn and twist with life. It can cure almost any ailment man suffers from, mixed and treated by the right apothecary.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, The Parson, The Apothecary
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:
Destruction Quotes

She walked right past him, her face twisted in tears, the moaning spilling out of her again. She went to the display cabinet, the only thing remaining upright in the room.

And she grabbed it by one side—

And pulled on it hard once—

Twice—

And a third time.

Sending it crashing to the floor with a final-sounding crunch.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Grandmother, The Parson
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Invisible Quotes

His classmates kept their distance from him, too, like he was giving off a bad smell. He tried to remember if he’d talked to any of them since he’d arrived this morning. He didn’t think he had. Which meant he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone since his father that morning.

How could something like that happen?

But, finally, here was Harry. And that, at least, felt normal.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Conor’s Grandmother, Conor’s Father, Harry, Anton, Sully
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
Could It Be? Quotes

“Son,” his father said, leaning forward. “Stories don’t always have happy endings.”

This stopped him. Because they didn’t, did they? That’s one thing the monster had definitely taught him. Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn’t expect.

Related Characters: Conor’s Father (speaker), Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
The Third Tale Quotes

Harry leaned forward, his eyes flashing. “I see nothing,” he said. Without turning around, Conor asked the monster a question. “What did you do to help the invisible man?”

And he felt the monster’s voice again, like it was in his own head.

I made them see, it said.

Conor clenched his fists even tighter.

Then the monster leapt forward to make Harry see.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Harry (speaker), Conor’s Mother, Lily Andrews
Page Number: 152
Explanation and Analysis:
Punishment Quotes

He was going to be punished. It was finally going to happen. Everything was going to make sense again. She was going to expel him.

Punishment was coming.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry, Miss Kwan
Page Number: 157
Explanation and Analysis:

There are worse things than being invisible, the monster had said, and it was right.

Conor was no longer invisible. They all saw him now. But he was further away than ever.

Related Characters: The Monster (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Lily Andrews, Harry
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
A Note Quotes

I’m sorry for telling everyone about your mum, read the first line.

I miss being your friend, read the second.

Are you okay? read the third.

I see you, read the fourth, with the I underlined about a hundred times.

Related Characters: Lily Andrews (speaker), Conor O’Malley, Conor’s Mother, Harry
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis:
Life After Death Quotes

“I’ve known forever she wasn’t going to make it, almost from the beginning. She said she was getting better because that’s what I wanted to hear. And I believed her. Except I didn’t.”

No, the monster said.

Conor swallowed, still struggling. “And I started to think how much I wanted it to be over. How much I just wanted to stop having to think about it. How I couldn’t stand the waiting anymore. I couldn’t stand how alone it made me feel.”

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:

He faintly felt the huge hands of the monster pick him up, forming a little nest to hold him. He was only vaguely aware of the leaves and branches twisting around him, softening and widening to let him lie back.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

You were merely wishing for the end of pain, the monster said. Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all.

“I didn’t mean it,” Conor said.

You did, the monster said, but you also did not.

Conor sniffed and looked up to its face, which was as big as a wall in front of him. “How can both be true?”

Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour?

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother, The Evil Queen, The Parson, The Young Prince, The Apothecary
Page Number: 191
Explanation and Analysis:
The Truth Quotes

And he also knew he was going to get through it.

It would be terrible. It would be beyond terrible.

But he’d survive.

And it was for this that the monster came. It must have been.

Conor had needed it, and his need had somehow called it. And it had come walking. Just for this moment.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley, The Monster, Conor’s Mother
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’ll stay?” Conor whispered to the monster, barely able to speak. “You’ll stay until. . .”

I will stay, the monster said, its hands still on Conor’s shoulders. Now all you have to do is speak the truth.

And so Conor did.

He took in a breath.

And, at last, he spoke the final and total truth.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said, the tears dropping from his eyes, slowly at first, then spilling like a river.

Related Characters: Conor O’Malley (speaker), The Monster (speaker), Conor’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Yew Tree
Page Number: 204
Explanation and Analysis: