Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “It’s amazing that something as simple as a kiss can overpower the worst of worries.”

— Neal Shusterman

52. “In time, all storms settle to a pleasant breeze.”

— Neal Shusterman

53. “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.”

— Neal Shusterman

54. “Touch is a freaky thing when you’re not used to it. It makes you feel all kinds of things.”

— Neal Shusterman

55. “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.”

— Neal Shusterman

56. “When you live a life without questions, you’re unprepared for the questions when they come.”

— Neal Shusterman

57. “I think all mothers are alike, regardless of cultural background, when it comes to illogical cleaning.”

— Neal Shusterman

58. “Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.”

— Neal Shusterman

59. “We leave justice to the universe. And what rings out always echos back.”

— Neal Shusterman

60. “Grief is not an excuse for depravity.”

— Neal Shusterman

61. “You think you want to know the secrets of the universe. You think you want to see the way things all fit together. You believe in your heart of hearts that enlightenment will save the world and set you free. Maybe it will. But the path to enlightenment is rarely a pleasant one.”

— Neal Shusterman

62. “Did you ever get the feeling that everything was too perfect? Like the moment was so good that something had to be wrong? Kind of like the way a fish sees that bright, shiny lure just before it chomps down and gets hauled out of water to become someone’s lunch.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

64. “Love turns a heart to crystal,” said Mikey. “Much more valuable, but much more fragile.”

— Neal Shusterman

65. “Good God – don’t they teach you anything in those poor excuses for schools anymore?” Then he calms down, but only a little. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t. History is written by the victors – and when there are no victors, it all winds up in corporate shredders.” He looks out the window with the sad resignation of a man who knows he’s too old to change the world.”

— Neal Shusterman

66. “Whoever invented the spork should be killed.”

— Neal Shusterman

67. “We’ve just inserted catheters into your carotid artery and jugular vein,” says the nurse. “Right now your blood is being replaced with a synthetic oxygen-rich solution.”

— Neal Shusterman

68. “Kind of an early warning system originally developed to fight terrorism, but isn’t it nice to know we can now use it for civilian purposes?”

— Neal Shusterman

69. “Live by your impulses, and you’ll be just like them. You’re better than that, aren’t you, Red?”

— Neal Shusterman

70. “No matter how smart we think we are, we simply can’t know all there is to now-and if you spend all your time thinking about those things, it will drive you crazy.”

— Neal Shusterman

71. “Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. The best we get is pleasantness.”

— Neal Shusterman

72. “Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

75. “There’s a lot written about killers from the mortal age –monsters like Jack the Ripper, or Charlie Manson, or Cyber Sally –and the only difference between them and Goddard is that people let Goddard get away with it. The mortals knew how wrong it was, but somehow we’ve forgotten.”

— Neal Shusterman

76. “As far as authority is concerned, calm people quietly dying is a lot easier to deal with than angry people fighting for their lives.”

— Neal Shusterman

77. “Everyone’s going to remember where they were when the taps went dry, I think. Like when a president is assassinated.”

— Neal Shusterman

78. “We could have been called reapers,” Goddard said, “but our founders saw fit to call us scythes – because we are the weapons in mankind’s immortal hand. You are a fine weapon, Rowan, sharp, and precise. And when you strike, you are glorious to behold.”

— Neal Shusterman

79. “But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.”

— Neal Shusterman

80. “I think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity.”

— Neal Shusterman

81. “I used to be afraid of dying. Now I’m afraid of not living. There’s a difference. We go through life planning for a future, but sometimes that future never comes.”

— Neal Shusterman

82. “The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.”

— Neal Shusterman

83. “Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.”

— Neal Shusterman

84. “I love you,” he said. “Same here,” she responded. “Now get lost.”

— Neal Shusterman

85. “It’s my pleasure to be your displeasure.”

— Neal Shusterman

86. “The past never changes – and from what I can see, neither does the future.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

88. “The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.”

— Neal Shusterman

89. “What’s the point of living if you’re going to hate the world? Guard your heart if you have to, but don’t shut it away.”

— Neal Shusterman

90. “Would you rather die, or be unwound?”

— Neal Shusterman

91. “All I’m saying is that, unless you’re immortal, nothing can really belong to you. The best you can hope for is to hold something for a while, but in the end you’ve got to give it back.”

— Neal Shusterman

92. “Preventative measures are the bane of spontaneous action,” he said. “I prefer the glory of heroism amidst panic.”

— Neal Shusterman

93. “Scythe Curie seemed a mix of many emotions, but she folded them all away, like clothes that no longer fit, and closed the drawer. Citra expected she never spoke of this to anyone else, and would probably never speak of it again.”

— Neal Shusterman

94. “We never know what choices will lead to defining moments in our lives. A glance to the left instead of right could define who we meet and who passes us by. Our life path can be determined by a single phone call we make, or neglect to make.”

— Neal Shusterman

95. “If you have to ask then you don’t deserve an answer.”

— Neal Shusterman

96. “The worst part about doing something inexcusable is that you can never take it back. It’s like breaking a glass. It can’t unbreak. The best you can do it sweep it up, and hope you don’t step on the slivers you left behind.”

— Neal Shusterman

97. “What he’s really saying is: Please be a human being. With a life so full of rules and regiments, it’s so easy to forget that’s what they are. She knows – she sees – how often compassion takes a back seat to expediency.”

— Neal Shusterman

98. “Hey,” he said, “how about you be Cleopatra, and I’ll be Prometheus?”

— Neal Shusterman

99. “And when the abyss looks into you – and it will – may you look back unflinching.”

— Neal Shusterman

100. “He’s become like that briefcase in the ground-full of gems yet void of light, so nothing sparkles, nothing shines.”

— Neal Shusterman