Neal Shusterman Quotes

132 Sourced Quotes

You can't change laws without first changing human nature.' -Nurse Greta You can't change human nature without first changing the law.' -Nurse Yvonne

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

Neal Shusterman
So," says Lev, as casually as he can, "you wanna dance?" "Do you believe in the end of the world?" she responds. Lev shrugs. "I don't know. Why?" "Because the day after that is when I'll dance with you.

Neal Shusterman
She smiles at them as they go by and continues to play, making it clear that this furnace of a place, full of planes that cannot fly, is more than it seems. It is a womb of redemption for every Unwind, and fora ll those who fought the Heartland War and lost - which was everybody.

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

Neal Shusterman
Always been a goal-oriented girl. it was both her strength and her weakness. She had a drive to completion that always gets things done, but it also made her inflexible, and stubborn.

Neal Shusterman
You know that feeling you get when your leg falls asleep? Well, I suddenly had that feeling in my spine. Like termites were chewing through the marrow in my backbone.

Neal Shusterman
Our conversation with the supermarket manager had been about as helpful as a New Jersey road sign, and if you've ever been there, you know the signs don't tell you the exit you're coming up to, they only point out the exits you've just missed.

Neal Shusterman
Perhaps, thought Talon, there was a path in between. A way to shed their ignorance without losing their souls.

Neal Shusterman
Then Jix locked eyes with him and said very calmly, "If you hit her, I will open my mouth wide enough to swallow you whole, force you through my bowels, then out my other end." Avalon scowled at him. "You can't do that." "Try me," Jix said. Avalon backed off, then angrily stormed away, and Jix winked at Jill. "One in five.

Neal Shusterman
I have no idea,' he tells her, and there is such a spark in his eye when he says it, she can tell having no idea is exactly the way he wants it.

Neal Shusterman
It's amazing that something as simple as a kiss can overpower the worst of worries.

Neal Shusterman
It comes with being sixteen," Mom said. "You teenagers, you go into a cocoon when you turn fifteen and don't come out for years." "So they become butterflies when they finally come out?" my little sister Christina asked. "No," Mom said. "They're still caterpillars, only now they're big fat caterpillars that smell.

Neal Shusterman
No," says Ariana. "It was a dream. Reality got in the way, that's all.

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
I mean, it's like we all get our raw materials from our families―but it's up to us whether we build bridges or bombs.

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

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

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
I don't know what happens to our consciousness when we're unwound," says Connor. "I don't even know when that consciousness starts. But I do know this." He pauses to make sure all of them are listening. "We have a right to our lives!" The kids go wild. "We have a right to choose what happens to our bodies!" The cheers reach fever pitch. "We deserve a world where both those things are possible— and it's our job to help make that world.

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
Already Roland feels his limbs starting to go numb. He swallows hard. "I hate this. I hate you. I hate all of you." "I understand.

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
Roland glares at Connor and Connor glares back. Then he says what he always says at moments like this. "Nice socks." Although Roland doesn't look down right away, it derails him just enough for him to back off. He doesn't check to see if his socks match until he thinks Connor isn't looking. And the moment he does, Connor snickers. Small victories are better than none.

Neal Shusterman
Normally Connor would walk away from a conversation like this. His life is about tangibles: things you can see, hear and touch. God, souls, and all that has always been like a secret in a black box he couldn't see into, so it was easier just to leave it alone. Only now, he's inside the black box.

Neal Shusterman
Sometimes we make our alliances not by the shape and color of our flesh but by the convictions of our heart.

Neal Shusterman
Good in Crisis; Sucks at Normal.' That about sums up my whole life, doesn't it?

Neal Shusterman
The homes here are almost identical, but not quite, full of people almost identical, but not quite.

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
Great tragedies have great consequences. They ripple through the fabric of this world and the next. When the loss is too great for either world to bear, Everlost absorbs the shock, like a cushion between the two.

Neal Shusterman