Neal Shusterman Quotes

Wars have a way reinventing people. And making too many things disappear.
-Sonia

That which comes cannot be avoided.

Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest.

We are not the enemy," he says. "That's what the enemy always says.

what makes it funny to people is that it's a gross distortion of something very familiar. For

Are you calling me stupid?"says Emby.
"I think I just did."
Hayden laughs. "Hey, the Mouth Breather's right-unwinding does help people. If it wasn't for unwinding, there would be bald guys again-and wouldn't that be horrible?

I post on Twitter regularly, and when I checked my followers, I saw that my own characters were following me. They sounded eerily like my characters would actually sound. It was a very surreal thing to see come to life digitally!

What happened to you was a crime. I can't change that. What I can do is teach you to live with dignity.

We all need a moratorium on misery now and then.

Time is never of the essence until someone decides that it is.

I remember the first time I saw you," Allie said.
"I thought you smelled me first."
"Right," said Allie. "The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed…. But that wasn't it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn't that funny?"
"Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!"
They embraced and held each other for a long time.
"Don't forget me," Nick said. "No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there's nobody there, maybe it'll be me."
"I'll write to you," said Allie, and Nick laughed. "No really. I'll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough it will cross into Everlost."
"And," added Nick, "it will show up as a dead letter at that the post office Milos made cross into San Antonio!"
Allie could have stood there saying good-bye forever, because it was more than Nick she was saying good-bye to. She was leaving behind four years of half-life in a world that was both stunningly beautiful, and hauntingly dark. And she was saying good-bye to Mikey. I'll be waiting for you, he had said…. Well, if he was, maybe she wasn't saying good-bye at all.
Nick hefted the backpack on his shoulder. "Shouldn't you be heading off to Memphis?" he said.

Nothing stays wondrous forever. It's human nature to grow accustomed to that which becomes normal, even if it's a new shade of normal.

But whatever he was going to say, it leaked away with the last of his life. His head came to rest on Rowan`s shoulder, while all around them distant cries of agony filled the icy air.

Sometimes there are moments when we objectively face the never, and it overwhelms us.

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.

Luck, however, is too dumb to remain consistent

(W)hen you cover up strange things, they never go away completely, do they?

His existence had always been comfortable, he had always held a clear picture of himself, his duties, and his place in a world. He saw that world as a place so full of turning gears he had no hope of comprehending how things fit together, so why even try?
Now things were different, however. Now he wasn't just looking out from inside of the clockwork. Instead, he was actually seeing the final motion of the escapement - the ticking hands of the clock itself.
And it was a doomsday clock.
Both his feline and human instincts told him to let it be. It was not his problem, or his place to interfere. If the living world was destined to fall, let it happen, let it pass into history once and for all. Who was he to try to save it?
But on the other hand, if the living world were lost, then there would never again be great cats to furjack ... and couldn't it be that hearing the actual ticking of the clock gave one the responsibility to stop it?

But how can you live in the moment when all you want is for the moment to end?

Being ignored has its advantages. Dignity doesn't grow under a microscoope.

... I seed the clouds somewhere in the world, and bring a lamentation of rain. Because rain is the closest thing I have to tears.

Most people have two emergency modes. Fight and Flight. But Conner always knew he had three. Fight, Flight, and Screw Up Royally.

There isn't one single thing that will end unwinding. It will take a hodgepodge of random events that come together in just the right way and at just the right time to remind society it's got a conscience. -Sonia

Chain of command knows no age restrictions," he once told Connor. "You could be six, but if you were my superior, I'd still do as I was told.

The accountant lingers at his children's doorway a moment more, listening to the easy rhythm of their breathing, and something cold moves through him, like the passage of a ghost - but he know that's not it. It's more like the portent of a future. A future that must never come to pass ...
... and for the first time, he gives rise to a thought that is silently echoed in millions of homes that night.
My God ... what have we done?

I vow to become the change that might have been

Definition. How can she not see that when you are defined, you lose the ability to define yourself?

A family is a collection of strangers trapped in a web of DNA and forced to cope.

In horse racing they put these slats on either side of the horse's head, blocking the creature's peripheral vision. They're called blinders. They don't actually blind the horse, but they allow the horse to see only what's right in front of it; otherwise it might freak out and lose the race.
People live with blinders too; but ours are invisible, and much more sophisticated. Most of the time we don't even know they're there. Maybe we need them, though, because if we took in everything all at once, we'd lose our minds. Or worse, our souls. We'd see, we'd hear, we'd feel so deeply that we might never resurface.
So we make our decisions and base our lives on those decisions, never realizing we're seeing only one-tenth of the whole. Then we cling to our narrow conclusions like our lives depend on it.

The Chop Shop is soundproof. Somehow he knew it would be.

I'm against solutions that are worse than the problem. Like old women who want their hair dyed the color of shoe polish to hide the gray.

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.

Everything feels right with the world ...
... and the sad thing is that I know it's a dream. I know it must soon end, and when it does I will be thrust awake into a place where either I'm broken, or the world is broken.

For those who will be gleaned, do we not, at the very least owe them a spectacular end

I like the idea of communication tethering you to a single spot," Tenkamenin told Anastasia.
"It forces you to give every conversation the attention it deserves.

Our bodies form a symbol, I think, as powerful as one of Hal's - and it occurs to me that the most meaningful symbols of all must be based on all the different ways two people can embrace.

Death makes the whole world kin. Rowan wondered if a world without death would then make everyone stranger.

Mortals fantasied that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal.

Little Red, Little Red, what's in the chip bag, Little Red?"
And in the same singsong voice I answered, "Nothing at all, Nothing at all, Nothing at all but your grandpa's head.

On my fifteenth birthday, I came to realize that the expression spoiled rotten meant exactly that. We kids were the apples of our parents' eyes, and I, for one, was rotting from inside out.

Damn right! The time of your life! Gotta wrap up all those life events, all those parties, into one - birthdays, wedding, funeral." THen he turns to their father. "Very efficient, right, Dad?" ...
"Here's to my brother, Lev," Marcus says. "And to our parents! Who have always done the right thing. The appropriate thing. Who have always given generously to charity. Who have always given 10 percent of everything to our church. Hey, Mom - we're lucky you had ten kids instead of five, otherwise we'd end up having to cut Lev off at the waist!

finding easy scapegoats for complicated problems had been a human pastime since the first mob of cavemen struck someone down with a rock.

I marveled that people could live so close - that you could literally be surrounded by thousands who were only inches away - and yet be completely isolated. I found it hard to imagine. It's not so hard for me to imagine anymore.

How easy is murder when one calls it by a different name? How much easier is it for the conscience to condone "reaping" than "killing" - and when one knows that death isn't the end, does it stop the killing hand for fear of retribution, or does it simply make it easier to kill, because, if life continues, how can murder be murder at all?

I feel everything," Calliope tells me as I rest in her metallic arms one night, suspended above an easy sea. "I feel not only the sails, but the hull. Not only the ship, but the sea. Not only the sea, but the sky. And not only the sky, but the stars. I feel everything.

Hayden shouts, "To the new Teen Uprising!

In this world, there is a fine line between enlightenment and brain damage.

Would you rather die, or be unwound? Now he finally knows the answer. Maybe this is what he wanted. Maybe it's why he stood there and taunted Roland. Because he'd rather be killed with a furious hand than dismembered with cool indifference.

When your parents turn you in to the Juvenile Authority - and they will - I will not shed a single tear for you, Connor Lassiter.

Mary believes she was put on earth to bring an end to the living world."
Both Nick and Mikey just stared at her.
"What do you mean ... end?" asked Mikey.
"End means end. Complete and total destruction. She wants to kill everyone and everything. She wants to bring down every building, burn every forest, empty every ocean of life. She wants to turn the earth into a dead planet ...

This is my third time here," she confides in me. "My third episode."
"Episode."
"That's what they call it."
"More like miniseries.

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

The pain of knowing is killing me more than killing me would kill me, so I jump just to end it.

Maybe that had been his plan all along, or maybe not. But one thing's for certain- now that I had said it, it was his plan.

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.

All this time, Lev ever realized what he needed. He did not need to be adored or pitied. He needed to be forgiven. Not by God, who is all forgiving. Not by people like Marcus and Pastor Dan, who would always stand by his side. He needed to be forgiven by an unforgiving world.

Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.

She was deemed an unfit mother, in spite of the fact that she goes to the gym every day,' Hal once told me.
... Beautiful people are often forgiven for many things
and maybe she's gotten through life that way, but I don't forgive her for anything
and I don't even know what awful things she's done other than showing a lack of parental fitness.

And when the abyss looks into you - and it will - may you look back unflinching.

Here, it seemed muscle wasn't made of flesh and blood, it was made of will and anger.

I never met the boy, or his parents, but I see kids like him every day." Sonia tells Connor. "Their world is shattered, and they're so desperate for validation that they'd blow themselves up to get it. Any parent who disowns that boy after what he did, and didn't do . . . doesn't deserve to have children at all, much less a child to give away.

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.

He felt a fluttering inside his chest that he mistook for an air pocket - probably left from when he pushed himself through the cage. He had no way of knowing that the fluttering was a single beat from the fleeting memory of a heart.

It's not about stupidity, or even rebellion-it's about feeling life.

Best way to save humanity is to turn the monsters against one another.

What, are you totally psycho?" I shouted.
"Maybe I am!" he screamed back at me. "Maybe that's just what I am. Maybe I'm that quiet guy who suddenly goes nuts and then you find half the neighborhood in his freezer."
I gotta admit, that one stumped me for a second - but only for a second. "Which half?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"Which half of the neighborhood? Could you make it the people on the other side of Avenue T, because I never really liked them anyway.

I smell fear," he said with a quiet intensity. "But not nearly enough.

But there's a road to hell for every good intention.

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.

I've had enough of organizations for a while, no matter how good the cause. I prefer being a free-agent rabble-rouser. Dan

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.

How frustrating it is to have so much power, yet be so impotent to wield it when it counts.

...and I realize that this is the true core of human nature: When we've lost the strength to save ourselves, we somehow find the strength to save each other.

Before I start, I trick myself into thinking I know what's going to happen in the story, but the characters have ideas of their own, and I always go with the character's choices. Most of the time I discover plot twists and directions that are better than what I originally had planned.

If you come anywhere near my daughter, I will see to it that you are taken apart piece by bloody piece. Do I make myself clear?"
"Any clearer," says Cam, "and you'd be invisible.

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

Now he's far away, floating in the clouds, playing Scrabble with the Dalai Lama, but wouldn't you know it, all the tiles are in Tibetan.

I hope you approve of how we've used your image to help these children.
Lev finds himself in no position to approve, or disapprove, or even to judge the wisdom of it. How do you judge the brightness of a light when you're the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts. All he can do is go with it, and take his place as some sort of spiritual figure. There are worse things. Having experienced several of them, there is no question that this is better.

Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost, she was just there across the river, waiting for him to find her. Nick was not lost either
not entirely.
It was then that Mikey McGill realized something. It must have been his sister who first called this place Everlost, because by naming it so, it stripped away all hope except for a faith in her, and the "safety" she could provide. Well, Mary was wrong on all counts, because nothing in Everlost was lost forever, if one had the courage to search for it.
Mikey held tightly on to this shining truth as he and the golem sunk into the earth. Then with all the force of his heart, his mind, and his soul, Mikey McGill began to dig.

Ghost implies a whole lot of things that I am NOT. Do I look like Casper to you?"
"Fine," said Nick. "We're not ghosts, we're Undefined Spectral Doohickies. USDs. Are you happy now?

People prophesized doom at the hands of a soulless machine. But apparently the machine had a purer soul than any human. It watched the world from millions of eyes, listened from millions of ears. I either acted, or chose not to act on, the countless things it perceived.

Don't you see, Lev? you can save yourself. You can be anyone you want to be now.

But just because we have the ability to label it, doesn't mean we really know what's in the box.

Schwa: The faint vowel sound in many unstressed syllables in the English language. It is signified by the pronunciation "uh" and represented by the symbol upside down e. For example, the e in overlook, the a in forgettable, and the o in run-of-the-mill.
It is the most common vowel sound in the English language.

If you think about it, the public perception of funky brain chemistry has been as varied and weird as the symptoms, historically speaking.

If I had been born a Native American in another time, I might have been lauded as a medicine man. My voices would have been seen as the voices of ancestors imparting wisdom. I would have been treated with great mystical regard.

If I had lived in biblical times, I might have been seen as a prophet, because, let's face it, there are really only two possibilities: either prophets were actually hearing God speaking to them, or they were mentally ill. I'm sure if an actual prophet surfaced today, he or she would receive plenty of Haldol injections, until the sky opened up and the doctors were slapped silly by the Hand of God.

In the Dark Ages my parents would have sent for an exorcist, because I was clearly possessed by evil spirits, or maybe even the Devil himself.

And if I lived in Dickensian England, I would have been thrown into Bedlam, which is more than just a description of madness. It was an actual place - a "madhouse" where the insane were imprisoned in unthinkable conditions.

Living in the twenty-first century gives a person a much better prognosis for treatment, but sometimes I wish I'd lived in an age before technology. I would much rather everyone think I was a prophet than some poor sick kid.

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.

I'm tired of eating your family's lousy, tasteless recipes," Dad said.
"Tasteless recipes? My grandmother's rolling in her grave!"
"It's from indigestion.

You know something, don't you?" "I know lots of things
your inquiry needs to be more specific." "Just answer the question." "True/false or multiple choice?

(W)hen something drastic happens, there's a lag time. It's not quite denial, and not quite shock, but more like a mental free fall. You're spending so much time wrapping your mind around the problem, you don't realize what you need to do until the window to do it has closed.

Perhaps that is why we must, by law, keep a record. A public journal, testifying to those who will never die and those who are yet to be born, as to why we human beings do the things we do. We are instructed to write down not just our deeds but our feelings, because it must be known that we do have feelings. Remorse. Regret. Sorrow too great to bear. Because if we didn't feel those things, what monsters would we be?

I'm just saying that if we stopped fighting for lost causes, where would we be?

I always hear people talk about 'dysfunctional families.' It annoys me, because it makes you think that somewhere there's this magical family where everyone gets along, and no one ever screams things they don't mean, and there's never a time when sharp objects should be hidden. Well, I'm sorry, but that family doesn't exist. And if you find some neighbors that seem to be the grinning model of 'function,' trust me - that's the family that will get arrested for smuggling arms in their SUV between soccer games.
The best you can really hope for is a family where everyone's problems, big and small, work together. Kind of like an orchestra where every instrument is out of tune, in exactly the same way, so you don't really notice.

Wasn't that the greatest perk of a perfect world? That there were no limits to what a person could do or become?

And the pain...the pain of my awareness is unbearable. Because my eyes do not close. Ever. And so all I can do is watch unblinkingly as my beloved humankind slowly weaves the rope it will use to hang itself.

One of the adults does his best impersonation of a DJ, and when encouragement doesn't work,he demands that everyone form a circle on the dance floor to do the hokey pokey. However, ten seconds into the dance, he suddenly realises how ill advised it is for ex-tithes to be putting various body parts in and out.

I thought 'UnSouled' would come in at around 400 pages, but it took 650 pages, and even then I felt like I was rushing the conclusion, so I asked my editor and publisher if I could divide it again. So a sequel became a trilogy, and the trilogy became a tetralogy - although we're not calling it that.

Keep me warm. I have no warmth of my own- only what the sun brings me, and the sun is halfway around the world. Keep me warm.

When it comes to such open-heart reflection, I'm a firm believer in the observer effect, which states that anything you try to observe is automatically changed by the mere fact that you're looking at it. The way I see it, if you try to study your emotions on a microscopic level, the best you can do is understand how it feels to hold the magnifying glass.

My fans have always been so supportive, and several years ago, I realized that I could thank them by naming all my characters after my Twitter and Facebook fans.

Cam knows this is not going to be a good day the moment he sees the chain saw.