Neal Shusterman - Unwind (2007)

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

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

Neal Shusterman
He does not deserve this. He has done many things, not all good, but he does not deserve this. And he never did get his priest.

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

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
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
Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it.

Neal Shusterman
Milestone! This is a momentous occasion," he tells her cheerily. "It should be witnessed by a friend." She throws him an icy gaze, and he does a verbal back pedal. "Aaaand since no friends are present, I'll have to do.

Neal Shusterman
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
He only wishes there were something that would heal the scars in his mind, which he can still feel. He sees his mind now as an archipelago of islands that he labors to build bridges between - and while he's had great success engineering the most spectacular of bridges, he suspects there are some islands that he'll never reach.

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
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.

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

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

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

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