Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “A scent, a sound, an errant shadow too minor to register consciously might be enough to make a well-trained scythe’s neck hairs bristle.”

— Neal Shusterman

302. “I think it’s outrageously cruel to keep a puzzle that they know is missing a single piece.”

— Neal Shusterman

303. “Their fate rested entirely on me. I could save them by telling the truth. I could destroy them by lying. No one should have that much power.”

— Neal Shusterman

304. “I will be keeper of your secret,” Talon told the silent grave of the forgotten inventor. “I will be the one who remembers why we forget.”

— Neal Shusterman

305. “Every book has something to teach us,” she said, “and crucial knowledge at the right time can be a very powerful thing.”

— Neal Shusterman

306. “Scythe Curie seemed a mix of many emotions, but she folded them all away, like clothes that no longer fit, and closed the drawer.”

— Neal Shusterman

307. “Compound eyes confound lies.”

— Neal Shusterman

308. “This is how he always imagined- a dangerous place full of mystery and violent kids.”

— Neal Shusterman

309. “Dreams can twist your emotions like no reality can.”

— Neal Shusterman

310. “Of course, the bad scythes weren’t all in the past. But instead of “bad” they were now called “innovative” and “forward-thinking.”

— Neal Shusterman

311. “To live between the prospect of an unknown eternal sky and a dark, enveloping Earth must have been glorious – for how else could it give rise to such magnificent expression?”

— Neal Shusterman

312. “An arrogant head of state gives permission to all nature of hate as long as it feeds his ambition. And the unfortunate truth is, people devour it. Society gorges itself, and rots. Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.”

— Neal Shusterman

313. “I still can’t figure out if it’s bravery or cowardice to take your own life. I can’t figure out whether it’s being selfish, or selfless. It is the ultimate act of letting go of oneself, or a cheap act of self-possession? People say a failed attempt is a cry for help. I guess that’s true if the person meant it to be unsuccessful. But then, I guess most failed attempts aren’t entirely sincere, because, let’s face it, if you want to off yourself, there are plenty of ways to make sure it works.”

— Neal Shusterman

314. “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

315. “More and more scythes are coming to enjoy the act of killing. Conscience is becoming a casualty.”

— Neal Shusterman

316. “I long for the luxury of being impractical.”

— Neal Shusterman

317. “I ask for guidance. And for courage. And I beg – oh, how I beg – that I never become so desensitized to the death... that it feels normal. Commonplace.”

— Neal Shusterman

318. “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

319. “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

320. “There was no lane line, no net, nothin to keep them apart but the well of her will. But that kept losing bricks.”

— Neal Shusterman

321. “La humanidad es inocente; la humanidad es culpable. Y ambos estados son indiscutiblemente ciertos.”

— Neal Shusterman

322. “The moment you’re loved, that’s when you got your soul.”

— Neal Shusterman

323. “Rocks eroded into astonished faces.”

— Neal Shusterman

324. “She idly wonders which is crueler, man or nature. She determines it must be man. Nature has no remorse, but neither does it have malice.”

— Neal Shusterman

325. “Epiphanies are never convenient, and often arrive too late.”

— Neal Shusterman

326. “In the backseat Moose and Squirrel inhabited a pair of six-year-old-twins, and wouldn’t stop bickering and picking their noses. They were clearly in their element.”

— Neal Shusterman

327. “On a sunny Tuesday – for it seems so many awful things happen on a Tuesday – six astronauts and one schoolteacher attempted to pierce the sky. Instead they touched the stars.”

— Neal Shusterman

328. “One could say, Ayn, that he has cast himself as Atlas. Which means the slightest shrug can shake the world.”

— Neal Shusterman

329. “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

330. “A successful lie is not fueled by the liar; it is fueled by the willingness of the listener to believe. You can’t expose a lie without first shattering the will to believe it.”

— Neal Shusterman

331. “Death doesn’t just make all the world kin, it makes all religions one.”

— Neal Shusterman

332. “Rowan’s apprenticeship was, to say the least, inconsistent – beginning with stoic and wise Scythe Faraday, and ending with the brutality of Scythe Goddard. If there was one thing that Scythe Faraday had taught him, it was to live by the convictions of his heart, no matter what the consequences. And if there was one thing Scythe Goddard had taught him, it was to have no heart, taking life without regrets. The two philosophies forever warred in Rowan’s mind, rending him in two. But silently.”

— Neal Shusterman

333. “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

334. “It’s that quirky kind of weekend feeling they write ridiculous sunny-day songs about. You know the ones – I’m sure they’re on your iPod even though you’d never admit it.”

— Neal Shusterman

335. “Best way to save humanity is to turn the monsters against one another.”

— Neal Shusterman

336. “We can put off things far more effectively than those doomed to die, because death has become the exception instead of the rule.”

— Neal Shusterman

337. “To name her is to sink her,” he told me. “That which we name takes greater weight than the sea it displaces. Ask any shipwreck.”

— Neal Shusterman

338. “One thing yo learn when you’ve lived as long as I have-people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I’m pleased to be in the light.”

— Neal Shusterman

339. “We can lie to ourselves, saying we believe one thing, and sometimes we convince other’s it’s true, with the hope that by convincing others, we can convince ourselves. Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.”

— Neal Shusterman

340. “So is darkness better than a heartfelt lie?”

— Neal Shusterman

341. “Beautiful is dangerous.”

— Neal Shusterman

342. “Why would anyone in their right mind want to be a teenager more than once? When.”

— Neal Shusterman

343. “I know exactly what he means. I had overheard Poirot talking to my parents. He was using words like “psychosis” and “schizophrenic”. Words that people feel they have to whisper, or not repeat at all. The Mental-Illness-That-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

— Neal Shusterman

344. “That’s right, pick on Emby,” says Connor. “Show everyone just how low you are.”

— Neal Shusterman

345. “They were the screams of riders torn apart by the twisted reflections of their own inner selves.”

— Neal Shusterman

346. “That which we name takes greater weight than the sea it displaces. Ask any shipwreck.”

— Neal Shusterman

347. “And so, as the mob backs away to give them space... as the riot police holster their weapons, standing down, and as Risa takes the podium, calming the crowd with a voice as soothing as a sonata, Connor Lassiter holds his family like he’ll never let them go.”

— Neal Shusterman

348. “With hardly any effort at all, she made me feel special. Just like all the other people she toyed with.”

— Neal Shusterman

349. “Close enough to feel it, but not close enough to burn.”

— Neal Shusterman

350. “And, like the Thunderhead, we love humanity. But we know not to coddle it. Humanity must accept the consequences of its own actions. We cannot – should not – protect it from itself.”

— Neal Shusterman