Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Forget solar energy – if you could harness denial, it would power the world for generations.”

— Neal Shusterman

202. “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

203. “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

204. “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

205. “Heaven and hell – nirvana and Valhalla, reincarnation, hauntings, and so many underworlds, one would think the grave was a corridor with a million doors.”

— Neal Shusterman

206. “It does, Tennyson, because there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. There’s a fine line between being assertive and being a bully. And you’re on the wrong side of both lines.”

— Neal Shusterman

207. “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

208. “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

209. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

211. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

213. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

216. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

218. “Love remains mortal.”

— Neal Shusterman

219. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

221. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

223. “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

224. “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

225. “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

226. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

228. “In a population of hundreds of millions, such a small number of people is a mere drop in the bucket... but enough drops can make any bucket overflow.”

— Neal Shusterman

229. “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

230. “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

231. “I will do everything in my power to save them from themselves, but if I am unsuccessful, at least I can take some comfort in the fact that I would then be free.”

— Neal Shusterman

232. “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

233. “She didn’t answer him. He didn’t expect her to. It was just a seed he wanted to plan.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

236. “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

237. “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

238. “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

239. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

242. “To be either too good or too bad drew attention. As much as he hated being the lettuce, it was his comfort zone.”

— Neal Shusterman

243. “For those who will be gleaned, do we not, at the very least owe them a spectacular end.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

245. “What? Were you born stupid, or did you just die that way?”

— Neal Shusterman

246. “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

247. “Although I do not require devotion, am I not deserving of it?”

— Neal Shusterman

248. “It’s a curse to see all that might happen but never know what will.”

— Neal Shusterman

249. “It is human nature to take the most magical of worlds for granted, turning each one into a blank canvas upon which to paint the lives of those who would live there. Only an outsider can see a world’s wonders for what they truly are.”

— Neal Shusterman

250. “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