Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “The two of them against each other. The two of them against the world. Everything in their lives was now defined by that binary. If they had to die today in order to live, it would somehow be wrong if they didn’t do it together.”

— Neal Shusterman

202. “Maybe it’s the best answer of all. If more people could admit they really don’t know, maybe there never would have been a Heartland War.”

— Neal Shusterman

203. “Of course, the politicians, dictators, and warmongers weren’t happy, but their voices, which had always seemed so loud and intimidating, were suddenly insignificant. The emperor not only had no clothes, turns out he had no testicles either. The.”

— Neal Shusterman

204. “Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, because “what could have been” is much more highly regarded than “what should have been.” Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug.”

— Neal Shusterman

205. “So, if you’re asking me if it’s possible for you to make errors in judgement, the answer is yes. You make errors all the time... as does every other human being who has ever lived. Error is an intrinsic part of the human condition – and it is something I deeply love about humankind.”

— Neal Shusterman

206. “What can fingerprints mean when they’re not necessarily yours?”

— Neal Shusterman

207. “Such a delicate charge as pruning the human race should not be subject to the quirks of personality.”

— Neal Shusterman

208. “If pennies become worthless, does that devalue our thoughts to less than nothing?”

— Neal Shusterman

209. “Monster only had the power that you gave them.”

— Neal Shusterman

210. “There is a fine line between freedom and permission. The former is necessary. The latter is dangerous – perhaps the most dangerous thing the species that created me has ever faced.”

— Neal Shusterman

211. “I begin to wonder if David was like me. Seeing monsters everywhere and realizing there aren’t enough slingshots in the world to get rid of them.”

— Neal Shusterman

212. “I suppose even a simple slogan can be twisted into whatever shape we want, like a balloon animal – we can even make it loop back around on itself, becoming a noose. In the end, the measure of who we are can be seen in the shapes of our balloon animals.”

— Neal Shusterman

213. “It is the plight of every child to have depth their parents can scarcely imagine.”

— Neal Shusterman

214. “I’ll never understand how a man can live his life With his finger on the self-destruct button, Holding it there day after day, Blinded by an obsession to press it But lacking the conviction to do even that.”

— Neal Shusterman

215. “I imagine the center of the Earth must be a crowded place by now, but perhaps it is the spirits of those of us residing there that keep the Earth alive and green.”

— Neal Shusterman

216. “Before the Thunderhead, governments had constitutions and massive tomes of laws – yet even then, they were forever debated and challenged and manipulated. Wars were fought over the different interpretations of the same doctrine.”

— Neal Shusterman

217. “Forget solar energy – if you could harness denial, it would power the world for generations.”

— Neal Shusterman

218. “They will find whatever button will make you dance, and dance you will, no matter how hideous the tune.”

— Neal Shusterman

219. “You have robbed me, and everyone here, of their purpose. That’s not salvation, that’s damnation.”

— Neal Shusterman

220. “Don’t hide from it. Experience it. Experiencing your lives is the most important thing you can do.”

— Neal Shusterman

221. “One cannot let the events of one’s past murder one’s future.”

— Neal Shusterman

222. “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

223. “Therin lies the paradox of the profession,′ Faraday said. ‘Those who wish to have the job should not have it... and those who would most refuse to kill are the only ones who should.”

— Neal Shusterman

224. “I’m sure that absolute correctness must seem a dull existence to you, but I know no other way to be.”

— Neal Shusterman

225. “Funny how you don’t realize what’s missing until you’ve found it.”

— Neal Shusterman

226. “Have we ever had an enemy worse than ourselves?”

— Neal Shusterman

227. “Because if their own parents didn’t care enough about them to keep them, who would want them in Heaven?”

— Neal Shusterman

228. “To choose those who live and those who die would leave me both feared and adored, like emperor-gods of old. No, I decided. Let humankind be the saviors and the silencers. Let them be the heroes. Let them be the monsters.”

— Neal Shusterman

229. “How ironic, then, and how poetic, that humankind may have created the Creator out of want for one. Man creates God, who then creates man. Is that not the perfect circle of life? But then, if that turns out to be the case, who is created in whose image?”

— Neal Shusterman

230. “Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It’s not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it’s the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don’t last long in captivity.”

— Neal Shusterman

231. “It’s kind of like religion. It gives us comfort to believe we have defined something that is, by its very nature, indefinable. As to whether or not we’ve gotten it right, well, it’s all a matter of faith.”

— Neal Shusterman

232. “There’s a set of unspoken rules we live by when it comes to fighting. We can’t help it. It comes from living in a civilized world. Even when you’re fighting your hardest, somewhere deep down, you know how far you can go. But today the rules are gone. Today I fight not to win, but to destroy.”

— Neal Shusterman

233. “And in this way, we shall make our scythedom great once more.”

— Neal Shusterman

234. “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

235. “So much of my life had been under tight control. So much of Quinn’s life had been wild insanity. What we needed now was both: a directed burst of controlled insanity.”

— Neal Shusterman

236. “Putting me at the forefront of his thoughts drew out what little energy he had left, just as when I had focused on helping him – and I realize this is the true core of human nature: When we’ve lost the strength to save ourselves, we somehow find the strength to save each other.”

— Neal Shusterman

237. “People can read anything, but no one does. All they do is play games and watch cat holograms.”

— Neal Shusterman

238. “Things pass. Even big things. And when they’re far behind us, they don’t look as big anymore.”

— Neal Shusterman

239. “They sounded like those awful people on info-holograms. “It dices, it slices! But wait! There’s more!”

— Neal Shusterman

240. “Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it.”

— Neal Shusterman

241. “It sets me off giggling, which gets everyone else laughing. And it occurs to me that even in these do-or-die moments, there’s still space for us to laugh. I guess that means we still have some fight left in us.”

— Neal Shusterman

242. “I’m in my element, and my element is hydrogen burning in the heart of the sun!”

— Neal Shusterman

243. “We learn many things, from many people as opposed to your world, where you’re taught all the same things, by the same people.”

— Neal Shusterman

244. “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.”

— Neal Shusterman

245. “For standing between Cody and his pain is my obligation, and standing between my uncle and his pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Bronte is my joy.”

— Neal Shusterman

246. “Love remains mortal.”

— Neal Shusterman

247. “Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency. We.”

— Neal Shusterman

248. “You may feel a tugging sensation near your ankles.”

— Neal Shusterman

249. “Sometimes, though, you make a pact with yourself. I’ll pretend there’s nothing wrong if you pretend there’s nothing wrong. It’s called denial, and it’s one of the strongest pacts in the world. Just ask all those people who were still drinking champagne while the Titanic went down.”

— Neal Shusterman

250. “She stayed with the Toll because deep down, she believed that Greyson Tolliver was the real thing. That he was divinely moved by the Tone, and that his humility about it was understandable. A humble nature was, after all, the hallmark of a true holy man. It made perfect sense that he would refuse to believe he was part of the Holy Triad, but just because he didn’t believe it himself, didn’t make it any less true.”

— Neal Shusterman