Neal Shusterman Quotes

Respect doesn't come without a little resentment.

The Admiral's using us," he says to the kids around him. "Don't you see that?" Most of the kids just shrug, but Hayden's there, and he never misses an opportunity to add his peculiar wisdom to a situation. "I'd rather be used whole than in pieces," Hayden says.

The way I see it, the impossible happens all the time; but we're so good at taking it for granted, we forget it was once impossible.

I was asking if unwinding kills you, or if it leaves you alive somehow. C'mon—it's not like we haven't thought about it." (...) What do you think, Connor?" asks Hayden. "What hap­pens to your soul when you get unwound?" Who says I even got one?" For the sake of argument, let's say you do." Who says I want an argument?

What he's really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it's so easy to forget that's what they are. She knows—she sees—how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.

I believe that we have free will. I believe we get the chance to make choices in our lives. Not everything is set in stone from the moment we're born. We choose our destiny, our ultimate fate. But I also think that we don't realize the choices we've made until after we make them. We're racing down a freeway, only to realize we've missed all the exits, and the only direction we can go is dead ahead.

Well...you're a martyr and I'm a patron saint-I can't think of anyone better!

Would you rather die, or be unwound?

We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.

Heaven might shine bright, but so do flames.

Lord, if what I'm doing is wrong, then by all means strike me down. Otherwise set me free.

You have robbed me, and everyone here, of their purpose. That's not salvation, that's damnation.

...the first sign of civilization is always trash.

You don’t just go to somebody and say, ‘I’m a better person because you’re in my head.

I don't want to be empty on the inside.

From the end of the bar, the bartender threw a sidelong look at him, so Clarence pulled out a broken Bluetooth headset and fixed it to his ear. "I learned this trick while traveling with Mikey," Clarence told Nick. "Makes my brand of crazy the same as everyone else's.

Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don't teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn't want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn't want kids to know how much power they really had.

How much do you know about the Heartland War?' Connor shrugs. 'It was the last chapter in our history textbook, but we had state testing, so we never got to it.

I know this is your hand now,' she tells him. "Roland would have never touched me like that." Connor smiles, and Risa takes a moment to look down at the shark on his wrist. It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No- the soul of a man.

We weren't going anywhere," Nick said with a smile. He was trying to sound charming, but instead wound up sounding heavily sedated.

It's called loitering, which is like littering with human beings as the trash.

How do you judge the brightness of a light when you’re the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts.

...the Statue of Liberty's got this invitation: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your reeking homeless--' 'Huddled masses,' said Ira. 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' ... Okay, fine. So like everybody in the old countries says, 'Hey, I'm a huddled mass,' and they all wanna come over.

The way I see it, truth only looks good when you're looking at it from far away. It's kind of like that beautiful girl you see on the street when you're riding past in the bus... there she is, this amazing girl walking by on the street, and you think if you could only get off this stupid bus and introduce yourself to her, your life would change. The thing is, she's not as perfect as you think, and if you ever got off the bus to introduce yourself, you'd find out... This girl is truth. She's not so pretty, not so nice. But then, once you get to know her, all that stuff doesn't seem to matter.

How many kids are in the Graveyard?" "A bunch." "Who sends your supplies?" "George Washington. Or is it Abraham Lincoln? I forget." "How often do you receive new arrivals?" "About as often as you beat your wife.

We'll never be ready. So I guess that means we're as ready as we'll ever be.

I'm alone. And I'm crying. And no one is coming to the crib. And the nightlight has burned out. And I'm mad. I'm so mad. Left frontal lobe. I...I...I don't feel so good. Left occipital lobe. I... don't remember where...Left parietal lobe. I...I...I can't remember my name,but...but...Right temporal...but I'm still here. Right frontal. I'm still here... Right occipital.I'm still...Right parietal. I'm...Cerebellum. I'm...Thalamus. I...Hypothalamus. I...Hippocampus...Medulla.

I'm scared," he says."I know," says the nurse."I want you all to go to Hell.""That's natural.

Crawley reached into the pocket of his fancy robe - a dinner jacket, I think it's called. The kind of thing Professer Plum would wear before killing Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with the candlestick.

Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.

Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it's the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity

His life has been like a ballpark, hasn't it? All lines, structure, and rules, never changing. But now he's been hit over the wall into unknown territory.

I'll never understand how a man can live his life With his finger on the self-destruct button, Holding it there day after day, Blinded by an obsession to press it But lacking the conviction to do even that.

The living would come up with endless theories to argue, because the living were exceptionally good at arguing, especially when no one knew the answer.

In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

What can fingerprints mean when they’re not necessarily yours?

You'll feel a tingling in your chest," says a surgeon. "It's nothing to worry about.

Cities are never random. No matter how chaotic they might seem, everything about them grows out of a need to solve a problem

Hey," says Hayden, "I'm Switzerland; neutral as can be, and also with great chocolate." "Get lost," Roland tells him. "Already am." And Hayden strolls away.

I'm Switzerland; neutral as can be, and also with great chocolate.

Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it.

There's a set of unspoken rules we live by when it comes to fighting. We can't help it. It comes from living in a civilized world. Even when you're fighting your hardest, somewhere deep down, you know how far you can go. But today the rules are gone. Today I fight not to win, but to destroy.

The woman wears a floral print blouse with lots of leaves and pink flowers. Risa would like to attack her with a weed whacker.

We can lie to ourselves, saying we believe one thing, and sometimes we convince other's it's true, with the hope that by convincing others, we can convince ourselves. Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.

Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.

You don't like her, do you?" "Who, me? No, I love her dearly. Evil scheming bitches are my favorite kind of people." (Risa)

It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No--the soul of a man.

On a sunny Tuesday - for it seems so many awful things happen on a Tuesday - six astronauts and one schoolteacher attempted to pierce the sky. Instead they touched the stars.