Neal Shusterman Quotes

132 Sourced Quotes

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?

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
In the backseat Moose and Squirrel inhabited a pair of six-year-old-twins, and wouldn't stop bickering and picking their noses. They were clearly in their element.

Neal Shusterman
And he thinks that if his soul had a form, this is what it would be. A baby sleeping in his arms.

Neal Shusterman
How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?" "They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

Neal Shusterman
They meet in the girls' bathroom. The last time they were forced to meet in a place like this, they took separate, isolated stalls. Now they share one. They hold each other in the tight space, making no excuses for it. There's no time left in their lives for games, or for awkwardness, or for pretending they don't care about each others, and so they kiss as if they've done it forever. As if it is as crucial as the need for oxygen.

Neal Shusterman
Does a sick society get so used to its illness that it can't remember being well? what if the memory is too dangerous for the people who like things the way they are?

Neal Shusterman
The rides are different for everyone. I'm convinced of that now. I mean, sure, there are some we ride together. Either we find ourselves drawn to some common experience, or maybe we're pulled in by the people we care about. Our friends, our families can drag us onto coasters and Tilt-A-Whirls that are really meant for them. But in the end, no matter whose rides we find ourselves on, the experience is all our own.

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
Your hair looks funny," Lief said, as soon as the Ugloids left. "It stands straight up!" No," said Nick, intensely irritated, "It's hanging straight down." Lief just gave him an upside-down shrug. "Up is down in China and you're part-Chinese.

Neal Shusterman
My grandmother used to say that twisting paths always cross again," he told her. "And whose paths are more twisted than ours?

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
Incredible. It never ceases to amaze Starkey how far society will go to protect the children it loves and to discard the ones it doesn't.

Neal Shusterman
Getting to know someone in blind darkness changes your impression of them.

Neal Shusterman
This is not going to be easy. I'm good at being bad, but I'm bad at being good. I don't know the first thing about good deeds.

Neal Shusterman
As your older brother, it's my sacred duty to save you from yourself." She brings her fists down on the table, making all the dinner plates jump. "The ONLY reason you're fifteen minutes older than me is because you cut in front of the line, as usual!

Neal Shusterman
He also keeps his silence when Bible passages become shredded to justify unwinding, and kids start to see the face of God in the fragments.

Neal Shusterman
I came running down the stairs that morning, like it was Christmas. My parents were already up. In my family, presents never waited; they were there upon waking. Our family has a problem with what they called delayed gratification. We want what we want when we want it, and we always want it now.

Neal Shusterman
They say you never know who's the real hero and who's the real coward until you're looking death in the face. I've always been afraid of plenty of things, but fear isn't what makes you a coward. It's how depraved your heart becomes when fear gets pumped through it.

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

Neal Shusterman
It's funny how a flame can only burn your hand if you move too slow, you can tease it all you want and it never gets you, if your quick enough.

Neal Shusterman
Death doesn't just make all the world kin, it makes all religions one

Neal Shusterman
Should I push him or should I throw him?" Howie asks. "Do what comes naturally," I yelled back. "I don't know," he says. "This is a very unnatural thing.

Neal Shusterman
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.

Neal Shusterman
On a hairpin turn, above the dead forest, on no day in particular, a white Toyota crashed into a black Mercedes, for a moment blending into a blur of gray.

Neal Shusterman
Adulthood can do the most horrific things to the best of people.

Neal Shusterman
They signed the unwind order just to spite each other, but laugh, laugh, laugh, Hayden, because if you ever stop laughing, it might just tear you apart worse than a Chop Shop.

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

Neal Shusterman
Eventually your body will learn the alliances it has to make with itself,' Kenny had said - as if Cam was a factory full of strike-prone workers, or worse, a clutch of slaves forced into unwanted labor.

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

Neal Shusterman