Neal Shusterman Quotes

Unwinds didn't go out with a bang-they didn't even go out with a whimper. they went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers.

"You...you lost your faith?" "No...just my convictions. I still very much believe in God- just not a god who condones human tithing." Lev begins to feel himself choking up with an unexpected flood of feeling, all the emotions that had been building up throughout their talk-throughout the weeks-arriving all at once like a sonic boom. "I never knew there was a choice".

The Bill of Life was signed, the Unwind Accord went into effect, and the war was over. Everyone was so happy to end the war, no one cared about the consequences

Fight, flight, and screw up royaly.

Small victories are bet­ter than none.

I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

Sure, when you're in the midst of your own suffering, it's easy to convince yourself that you're no good—but we are all tested in this life...The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon 'in service,' which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.

...One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.

(Why did they call them sneakers if it was so hard to sneak in them?)

People would cheer throw confetti and then go about breaking the resolutions they had made only moments before.

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

I think all mothers are alike, regardless of cultural background, when it comes to illogical cleaning.

Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one's life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

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

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

When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.

Cities are never random. No matter how chaotic they might seem, everything about them grows out of a need to solve a problem. In fact, a city is nothing more than a solution to a problem, that in turn creates more problems that need more solutions, until towers rise, roads widen, bridges are built, and millions of people are caught up in a mad race to feed the problem-solving, problem-creating frenzy.

No true hero ever believes that they are one.

When you live a life without questions, you're unprepared for the questions when they come.

Words don't hurt you." Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.

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

It does, Tennyson, because there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you’re on the wrong side of both lines.

Touch is a freaky thing when you're not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things.

Love turns a heart to crystal...Much more valuable, but much more fragile.

You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other.

[...] every time he forces himself to think before acting, it's her voice in his head telling him to slow down. He wants to tell her, but she's always so busy in the medical jet—and you don't just go to somebody and say, "I'm a better person because you're in my head.

the captain is supposed to go down with the ship" . "unless the first mate knocks him out and throws him in a lifeboat

...And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the convergence of the wrong, of the right, and of the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep...For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of a doubt, which is which.

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.

A pedestal is the most insidious prison ever devised.

Walls don't fall without effort.

Connor smiles with mocking warmth at him, and glances at the tattoo on his wrist. "I like your dolphin.

Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up.

The moment you're loved, that's when you got your soul.

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

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

It's a big question. Where do you begin to change the world?

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

Then you'd better listen, because me sounding like Bronte is one of the signs of the apocalypse-and if the end fo the world is coming, good deeds could earn you Judgment day brownie points.

Who am I? The sum of your dreams, the thrill you refuse to grasp, the unknown you fear.

If your heart tells you something but your mind tells you something else, which do you believe? Both are just as apt to lie. In fact, they play at deceit all the time. Mostly they balance each other, giving us that crucial reality check. But what happens on the rare occasions when they conspire together?

You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free. Maybe it will. But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one.

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.

In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you—for we all know this within our hearts—the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular basis, although most of the time the solutions lead to even greater mysteries.

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.

For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Bronte is my joy

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