Shusterman Neal Quotes & Sayings

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

We all need a moratorium on misery now and then. — 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

Then she offers him a slim but sincere smile, and he reluctantly returns it. It doesn't bridge the gap between them, but at least it marks the spot where the bridge might be built. — Neal Shusterman

Today you're in a hospital. Or at least this morning. This hour. This minute. Where you'll be three minutes from now is anyone's guess. You've begun to notice, though, that, bit by bit the sense of being outside yourself has diminished with each passing day. A critical mass is reached, and now your soul collapses in upon itself.
You're back inside the vessel of your body.
Just one. Just you. Just an individual.
Me. — Neal Shusterman

(T)his could be the big inning of a wonderful friendship. — Neal Shusterman

His one-eight feels a whole lot bigger when I spend time hanging around in his grey matter. — Neal Shusterman

When he touches a wall the ooze grows thicker, drawn to his and as if he's become a gravity well for the darkness - and it occurs to me that the dark must be in love with the light. Yet one must always kill the other. — Neal Shusterman

Hayden shouts, "To the new Teen Uprising! — Neal Shusterman

There's ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things. — Neal Shusterman

[Dad] So your intentions were good. That's what matters.
[Anthony] But isn't, like, the road to hell paved with good intentions?
Yeah, well, so's the road to heaven. And if you spend too much time thinking about where those good intentions are taking you, you know where you end up?
Jersey?
I was thinking 'nowhere,' but you get the point. — Neal Shusterman

Hole ... " He grips Risa's hand tighter. "Hole, Risa, hole ... " And she smiles "Yes, Connor," she says. "You're whole. You're finally whole. — Neal Shusterman

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 ... — Neal Shusterman

He has no choice but to believe, because losing the hope of having hope would be unimaginable. — Neal Shusterman

Survival is a dance between our needs and our consciences. — Neal Shusterman

Who he was and who he will be are connected only by the fine, nearly invisible thread of who he is now. — Neal Shusterman

Exactly," says the parrot. "WHY are you here? Or should I ask 'Why are YOU here?' Or 'Why are you HERE? — 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

You Unwinds are all the same. You think that because no one loves you, then you can't love anyone. All right, then, if there's no one you love, then pick someone who needs to hear what you have to say. — 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

-Appointments? You can't be serious. With all due respect, they have the cognitive capacity of chimpanzees right now.-

-And if we want to change that, we will start treating them as human beings, not a mob of apes.- — Neal Shusterman

Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true. — Neal Shusterman

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. — Neal Shusterman

Sometimes prejudice can be slapped upside the head by tolerance. — Neal Shusterman

A true leader never puts his ego ahead of his assets. — Neal Shusterman

Cowards hide [ ... ] but warriors lie and wait [ ... ] the only difference is whether you're motivated by fear or purpose. — Neal Shusterman

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

I ain't no runaway, I'm a run-to. — Neal Shusterman

Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it. — Neal Shusterman

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. — Neal Shusterman

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. — Neal Shusterman

It made my blood boil so hot, my brain stopped working right. — Neal Shusterman

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! — Neal Shusterman

If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing - that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.
If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.
So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world? — Neal Shusterman

I was actually being sincere," Connor admits. "But I'm happy to insult you, if that's what you want. — 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

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. — Neal Shusterman

The Fatigues all talk like that. Big-Picture-speak, Risa calls it. Seeing the whole, and none of the parts. It's not just in their speech but in their eyes as well.
When they look at Risa, she can tell they don't really see her. They seem to see the mob of Unwinds more as a concept rather than a collection of anxious kids, and so they miss all the subtle social tremors that shake things just as powerfully as the jets shake the roof. — Neal Shusterman

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? — Neal Shusterman

Even an acknowledgment from someone who hates him is better than having no one but strangers watch him perish. — Neal Shusterman

What's going on? I'm in the back car of a roller coaster at the top of the climb, with the front rows already giving themselves over to gravity. I can hear those front riders screaming and know my own scream is only seconds away. I'm at the moment you hear the landing gear of a plane grind loudly into place, in that instant before your rational mind tells you it's just the landing gear. I'm leaping off a cliff only to discover I can fly... and then realizing there's nowhere to land. Ever. That's what's going on. — Neal Shusterman

Dreams can twist your emotions like no reality can. — 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

Lev looks at Risa, almost afraid to ask the obvious question. Finally he says, 'Uh ... why do we have a baby?'
'Ask him,' says Risa.
Stone-faced, Conner looks out of the window. 'They're looking for two boys and a girl. Having a baby will throw them off.'
'Great,' snaps Risa. 'Maybe we should all pick up a baby along the way. — 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

Do I look feeble to you"
"Actually, yes."
"Well, looks can be deceiving. For instance, when I met you, I thought you look reasonably intelligent. — 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

aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. — 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

AWOL's most valuable commodity: hope. It's something in short supply for those who have been deemed not worth the sum of their parts. — Neal Shusterman

You are only one boy, with one voice ... If you keep trying to be a choir, you'll lose that voice, and then who will hear you? — Neal Shusterman

No true hero ever believes that they are one. — Neal Shusterman

Freedom isn't freedom when you're addicted to it — Neal Shusterman

I wanted to take everything I was feeling, put it in a cannon and aim it at him. — Neal Shusterman

It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer remembered how to be alone without being lonely. — Neal Shusterman

-How do you dream of a future when you're not supposed to have one? How do you keep going when the world has disowned you?-

-I keep reminding myself that I'm right, and the world is wrong.-

-But how do you know?-

-I believe. I don't have your kind of faith, but I got faith in myself...- — Neal Shusterman

You have the soul of a corporation, a teacher once told him. It was meant as an insult, but he took it as a compliment. Corporations have great power and do fine things in this world when they choose to. — 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

Facts never prevent the ignorant from jerking their knees into the groin of science. — Neal Shusterman

But laugh, laugh, laugh, because if you ever stop laughing, it might just tear you apart — Neal Shusterman

We weren't going anywhere, Nick said with a smile. He was trying to sound charming, but instead wound up sounding heavily sedated. — Neal Shusterman

WFor to put oneself above the law is a fundamental recipe for disaster. — Neal Shusterman

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

Makes sense, the earth is quick to consume the flesh of things that ain't natural. — Neal Shusterman

#5) YOU ARE BETTER THAN THOSE WHO WOULD UNWIND YOU. RISE TO THE OCCASION. — Neal Shusterman

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. — Neal Shusterman

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 — Neal Shusterman

It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn't know who the enemy was. — Neal Shusterman

Respect doesn't come without a little resentment. — Neal Shusterman

You're confusing boredom with obsession. — Neal Shusterman

Then they pull onto Route 66, heading east into a world that's ripe for saving — 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

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. — Neal Shusterman

No outcome is certain, even when it seems so. Fates can change with the swing of a bat, or the flip of a switch, or the closing of a circuit.
It all came down to how far you dared to go to accomplish what the world thinks can't be done. — Neal Shusterman

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

Well, this place was not purgatory, Nirvana, or any sort of rebirth, and it occurred to Nick that regardless of what people believed, the universe had its own ideas. — 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

We're roughage," Tyger said. "If we don't cause a little intestinal distress, no one knows we're there. — Neal Shusterman

There are many ways in which the "check brain" light illuminates, but here's the screwed-up part: the driver can't see it. It's like the light is positioned in the backseat cup holder, beneath an empty can of soda that's been there for a month. No one sees it but the passengers - and only if they're really looking for it, or when the light gets so bright and so hot that it melts the can, and sets the whole car on fire. — Neal Shusterman

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. — Neal Shusterman

He wonders if it's some sort of twisted joke the adults are having, shoving hormonal teens into tight quarters but making it impossible to do anything but breathe.
"I wouldn't mind suffocating if it was with you," the girl says, which is flattering, but makes him even less interested in her.
"There'll be a better time," he tells her, knowing that such a time will never come - at least not for her - but hope is a powerful motivator.
Eventually they settle into a sort of symbiotic breathing rhythm. He breathes in when she breathes out, so their chests don't fight for space.
After a while, there's a jarring motion. With his arm now around the girl, he holds her a little more tightly, knowing that easing her fear somehow eases his own. — Neal Shusterman

Finally his father looks at him. "Are you satisfied now? Are you happy with the results of your actions?"

Lev has imagined this conversation between him and his father a hundred times. In each of those mental confrontations, Lev has always been the one making accusations, not the other way around. How dare he? How dare he? Lev wants to lash out, but he refuses to take the bait. He says nothing.

"Do you have any idea what you've put this family through?" his father says. "The shame? The ridicule?"

Lev can't maintain his silence. "Then maybe you shouldn't surround yourself with people as judgmental as you. — Neal Shusterman

Innocence is doomed to die a senseless death at our own hands, a casualty of the mistakes we can never undo. So we lay to rest the wide-eyed wonder we once thrived upon, replacing it with the scars of which we never speak, too knotted for any amount of technology to repair. — Neal Shusterman

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

It's an idea-an idea that, according to the history expert somewhere in my left brain, was abolished in 1865. — Neal Shusterman

Outside the rain finally began to fall, surging in fits and starts. "I love the way it rains here," he told her. "It reminds me that some forces of nature can never be entirely subdued. They are eternal, which is a far better thing to be than immortal. — Neal Shusterman

Love the ponytail," Connor says, pointing at his hair.
Lev shrugs. "It's just because my hair is so tatted. But maybe I'll keep it."
"Don't," Connor tells him. "I lied. I hate it. — Neal Shusterman

Can we just get on with this already?"(7). — Neal Shusterman

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. — Neal Shusterman

Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse, — Neal Shusterman

I'd never want a piece of someone else's brain," Kele had said. "I mean, you don't know where it's been. — Neal Shusterman

Every Unwind believes in their heart of hearts that it won't happen to them - that their parents, no matter how strained things get, will be smart enough not to fall for the net ads, TV commercials, and billboards that say things like Unwinding: the sensible solution. — Neal Shusterman

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. — Neal Shusterman

When you know the future ... you can either let that future happen to you, or be the one to create it. — Neal Shusterman

Then his eyes glazed over for a second. 'I go places sometimes,' he told me, his voice as thready as his eyes. 'Don't know why I go places ... I just do. — Neal Shusterman

Like everything else in his life, he crashed forward, caution the first casualty. — Neal Shusterman

We longed for healing and happiness - as if happiness is a state of being. But it's not. Happiness is a vector. It's movement. — Neal Shusterman

You see, Risa, survival is a dance between our needs and our consciences. When the need is great enough, and the music loud enough, we can stomp conscience into the ground.'
Risa closes her eyes. She knows the dance ...
'It's the way of the world,' Divan continues. 'Look at unwinding, society's grand gavotte of denial. There will, no doubt, come a time when people look to one another and say, 'My God, what have we done?' But I don't believe it will happen any time soon. Until then, the dance must have music; the chorus must have its voice. Give it that voice, Risa. Play for me.'
But Risa's fingers offer him nothing, and the Orgao Organico holds the obdurate, unyielding silence of the grave. — Neal Shusterman

I don't want to go to the government," the Schwa says.
"Yeah," I said. "They'd dissect him and put him in a formaldehyde fish tank in Area 51."
Howie shook his head. "Area 51 is for aliens," he says. "They'd probably put him in Area 52. — Neal Shusterman