Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “And he thinks that if his soul had a form, this is what it would be. A baby sleeping in his arms.”

— Neal Shusterman

352. “It’s more than that now. I can’t tell the difference between what’s part of me and what’s not.”

— Neal Shusterman

353. “I feel everything,” Calliope tells me as I rest in her metallic arms one night, suspended above an easy sea. “I feel not only the sails, but the hull. Not only the ship, but the sea. Not only the sea, but the sky. And not only the sky, but the stars. I feel everything.”

— Neal Shusterman

354. “Then they pull onto Route 66, heading east into a world that’s ripe for saving.”

— Neal Shusterman

355. “They conformed so closely to their culture of nonconformity that there was a uniformity to them, defeating the whole purpose.”

— Neal Shusterman

356. “Whether consciousness is implanted in us by something divine, or whether it is created by the efforts of our brains, the end result is the same. We are.”

— Neal Shusterman

357. “This game’s stupid,” said Lief. “Who the heck is Zelda, anyway?”

— Neal Shusterman

358. “I shouldn’t be here,” I appeal to the captain, wondering if I’ve told him this before. “I have midterms and papers due and dirty clothes I never picked up from my bedroom floor, and I have friends, lots of friends.”

— Neal Shusterman

359. “He put the ring away, and Rowan let out his breath, not even realizing he had been holding it.”

— Neal Shusterman

360. “The fact that it was not human meant that it could never understand certain things, in spite of its immense empathy and intellect. It couldn’t comprehend, for instance, that the terror of the unknown was just as awful, and just as real, regardless of whether or not there was truly something to fear.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

362. “Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it.”

— Neal Shusterman

363. “But it’s not going to happen today – and there is a deep, abiding comfort in that. Deep enough to carry me through till tomorrow.”

— Neal Shusterman

364. “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

365. “We are not just AWOLS! We are not just parts! We are whole human beings-and history will look back on these times in shame!”

— Neal Shusterman

366. “What we perceive as art, the universe perceives as directions.”

— Neal Shusterman

367. “Truth can only be served from a scalding kettle; whether you blister or make tea is up to you.”

— Neal Shusterman

368. “Then you’d better listen, because me sounding like Bronte is one of the signs of the apocalypse-and if the end fo the world is coming, good deeds could earn you Judgment day brownie points.”

— Neal Shusterman

369. “Crawley reached into the pocket of his fancy robe – a dinner jacket, I think it’s called. The kind of thing Professer Plum would wear before killing Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with the candlestick.”

— Neal Shusterman

370. “I am lost in every possible way-Lev.”

— Neal Shusterman

371. “I’m sure my parents must be proud. Or horrified. Or are bitterly arguing about whether they’re proud or horrified, and have already hired lawyers to resolve the dispute. -Hayden Upchurch.”

— Neal Shusterman

372. “All his life there was only one thing Lec was allowed to believe. It had surrounded him, cocooned him, constricted him with the same stifling softness as the layers of insulation around him now. For the first time in his life, Lev feels those bounds around his soul begin to loosen.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

375. “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

376. “Statistically speaking, there’s a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I’d rather be partly great than entirely useless.”

— Neal Shusterman

377. “We are not the enemy,” he says. “That’s what the enemy always says.”

— Neal Shusterman

378. “You’ll find in life, Caden, that many decisions are made by morons in high places.”

— Neal Shusterman

379. “How strange to actually have to see the path of your journey in order to make it.”

— Neal Shusterman

380. “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

381. “I ain’t no runaway, I’m a run-to.”

— Neal Shusterman

382. “Some things simply made a person feel feminine; other things made a person feel masculine. Wasn’t that true of everyone regardless of gender? Or did binaries deny themselves the things that didn’t fit the mold? Well, regardless, Jerico found the faux pas and overcompensations more humorous than anything else.”

— Neal Shusterman

383. “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

384. “What do you do with a textbook case when no one’s written the textbook?”

— Neal Shusterman

385. “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

386. “Her eyes are open and her mind is somewhere else.”

— Neal Shusterman

387. “But Morrison put up his hands in instant surrender. “Leave me out of this,” he said. “I’m not going up against Scythe Anastasia.”

— Neal Shusterman

388. “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

389. “All he ever wanted was a comfortable chair and a place in history. Well, he was robbed of one and died in the other.”

— Neal Shusterman

390. “You’ll feel a tingling in your chest,” says a surgeon. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

— Neal Shusterman

391. “When, she wonders, did she stop being a child? The law says it was when she turned eighteen, but the law doesn’t know her.”

— Neal Shusterman

392. “Sometimes we make our alliances not by the shape and color of our flesh but by the convictions of our heart.”

— Neal Shusterman

393. “What was friendship if it isn’t some kind of love?”

— Neal Shusterman

394. “You know that feeling you get when your leg falls asleep? Well, I suddenly had that feeling in my spine. Like termites were chewing through the marrow in my backbone.”

— Neal Shusterman

395. “I guess once you start parting with all the things you think hold your life together, it’s hard to stop – and then you find out your life holds together all by itself.”

— Neal Shusterman

396. “You never realize the holes a person leaves behind until you fall into them.”

— Neal Shusterman

397. “Cuando uno no puede ganar, lo mejor es que haga un chiste de la derrota.”

— Neal Shusterman

398. “What’s the point of living forever if you can’t take a few risks?”

— Neal Shusterman

399. “My artwork isn’t evolving, it’s deconstructing, and I don’t know why.”

— Neal Shusterman

400. “Sigils, as I recall from some dark comic book series, are symbols of medieval magic from back in the day when so few people were literate that literacy itself was seen as borderline magical. A man who could read was considered a genius. A man who could read without moving his lips was proclaimed either divine or demonic, depending on the agenda of whoever was doing the proclaiming.”

— Neal Shusterman