Top 500 Neal Shusterman Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “What’s the point of living forever if you can’t take a few risks?”

— Neal Shusterman

402. “There’s a quickening of her heart when she sees him. She tells herself it’s anger.”

— Neal Shusterman

403. “There are few things he can stand less than a bunch of morons standing around looking at something that doesn’t work and wondering who’s going to fix it.”

— Neal Shusterman

404. “Impressive, isn’t it?” Divan says with pride. “I purchased it from a Brazilian artist, who has apparently made a career working in flesh. He claims his artwork is to protest unwinding, but I ask you, how much of a protest can it be if he uses the unwound for his art?”

— Neal Shusterman

405. “Sometimes there are moments when we objectively face the never, and it overwhelms us.”

— Neal Shusterman

406. “There are times I feel like I’m the kid screaming at the bottom of the well, and my dog runs off to pee on trees instead of getting help.”

— Neal Shusterman

407. “You should learn to relish the hunger more than the feast, lest you become a glutton.”

— Neal Shusterman

408. “The homes here are almost identical, but not quite, full of people almost identical, but not quite.”

— Neal Shusterman

409. “Nothing awful is without its beautiful side.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

411. “I have to realize that there are only two perfect acts. They are the two most important acts known to me, but I forbid myself to perform them, and leave them in the hands of humankind. They are the creation of life... and life’s taking.”

— Neal Shusterman

412. “I can’t help what I have any more than you can help what you don’t.”

— Neal Shusterman

413. “Can I throw you under a truck some other time.”

— Neal Shusterman

414. “Suddenly it was obvious to Connor why they don’t teach it. Once education was restructured and corporatized, they didn’t want kids knowing how close they came to toppling the government. They didn’t want kids to know how much power they really had.”

— Neal Shusterman

415. “But just because we have the ability to label it, doesn’t mean we really know what’s in the box.”

— Neal Shusterman

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

— Neal Shusterman

417. “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

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

— Neal Shusterman

419. “Instead of ignoring me, Frankie was suddenly noticing every little thing I did, wondering why I did it. Christina started asking me questions about things, like I was the smarter brother. Dad was now confiding in me about things that were really none of my business, and Mom started treating me like I was actually a responsible human being. It was all very disturbing.”

— Neal Shusterman

420. “Even though the whole world had slid of its axis. Breakfast was breakfast. How dare it be?”

— Neal Shusterman

421. “Suddenly, Tara’s accomplishment was clear. She had lined up allies among the school’s various groups and got them all to work together for probably the first time in the school’s history. She was like a master builder who could bend materials like stone and steel and clay to her will... except her materials were flesh and spirit.”

— Neal Shusterman

422. “Rowan grinned. “Come now, Your Excellency, there hasn’t been a terrorist in hundreds of years. I’m just a janitor cleaning filth from dark corners.”

— Neal Shusterman

423. “Incredible. It never ceases to amaze Starkey how far society will go to protect the children it loves and to discard the ones it doesn’t.”

— Neal Shusterman

424. “Okay. And what are your pronouns, Jeri?” Jeri found it refreshing that she asked so directly.”

— Neal Shusterman

425. “First rule of motherhood, dearie: men are screw-ups. Learn it now and you’ll be a whole lot happier.”

— Neal Shusterman

426. “It’s a big question. Where do you begin to change the world?”

— Neal Shusterman

427. “What’s that expression? The devil you know is better than the one you don’t?”

— Neal Shusterman

428. “The hiss of waves breaking at her ankles is a gentle sigh, as if the sea itself has found lasting contentment.”

— Neal Shusterman

429. “Perhaps the universe should have deigned to provide such warnings, but scythes were no more supernatural than tax collectors in the grand scheme of things. They showed up, did their unpleasant business, and were gone.”

— Neal Shusterman

430. “You don’t so much sleep as borrow eight hours from death.”

— Neal Shusterman

431. “Lord, if what I’m doing is wrong, then by all means strike me down. Otherwise set me free.”

— Neal Shusterman

432. “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

433. “Today he failed to change the world. As for tomorrow, who can tell?”

— Neal Shusterman

434. “Love, Allie concluded, wasn’t blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions.”

— Neal Shusterman

435. “Tyger might have thought of himself as a free spirit, but he wasn’t at all. He just defined the dimensions of his own cage.”

— Neal Shusterman

436. “I feel as if my entire life depends on my holding it together.”

— Neal Shusterman

437. “The result leaves my brain somewhere in orbit beyond Saturn, where it can’t bother anyone, especially me.”

— Neal Shusterman

438. “The best we can hope for is to be humble in our arrogance.”

— Neal Shusterman

439. “It was at that moment he realized that his spirit was truly human once more. For he no longer remembered how to be alone without being lonely.”

— Neal Shusterman

440. “People would cheer throw confetti and then go about breaking the resolutions they had made only moments before.”

— Neal Shusterman

441. “The weird thing is, hearing stories like this makes me feel a kind of kinship with the Almighty, because it proves that even God has psychotic episodes.”

— Neal Shusterman

442. “All children in Madagascar were raised genderless and forbidden to choose a gender until reaching adulthood. Even then, many didn’t choose a single state of being. Some, like Jerico, found fluidity to be their nature. “I feel like a woman beneath the sun and the stars. I feel like a man under the cover of clouds,” Jerico had explained to the crew when assuming command. “A simple glance at the skies will let you know how to address me at any given time.”

— Neal Shusterman

443. “In this world, there is a fine line between enlightenment and brain damage.”

— Neal Shusterman

444. “And I think, if thoughts are worth a penny, how much less promises must be worth. Especially the ones you’re likely to break.”

— Neal Shusterman

445. “Are people really such sheep that they can be fooled? Maybe. Or maybe with so much conflicting media, people just shut down. Maybe that’s the point.”

— Neal Shusterman

446. “We make mistakes. Believe me, if Goddard is installed as High Blade, half of the scythes who put him there will regret it in the morning, but by then it will be too late!”

— Neal Shusterman

447. “Apparently Quinn had woken up a short time ago and immediately asked for ice cream, knowing that kids in hospitals got whatever they wanted.”

— Neal Shusterman

448. “It’s strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don’t you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it’s only good the second time if it’s the first time for somebody else – as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you. The power of shared experiences. Maybe it’s a way to remind ourselves that on some level we’re all connected.”

— Neal Shusterman

449. “Important work,” Jeri quipped, “often loses the spotlight to self-important people.”

— Neal Shusterman

450. “I’m leaping off a cliff only to discover I can fly... and then realizing there’s nowhere to land. Ever. That’s what’s going on.”

— Neal Shusterman